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ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.-No. 34. 



Warren Hastings. 



AN ESSAY . 
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LIFE OF MACAULAY. 

Thomas Babington Macaulat, the great historian of England, was . 
born at Rothley, near Leicester, in 1800, and was named Thomas Bab- 
ington after his uncle. Macaulay's grandfather was a Scotch minister, 
and his ilather, Zachary, after having spent some time in Jamaica; 
returned to England, and joined Wilberforce and Clarkson in their 
efforts to abolish slavery in the British possessions. Macaulay was 
educated at Bristol and at Cambridge, where hegaiued great distinction, 
and twice won medals for his poems. He was also a member of the 
Union Debating Society, a famous club where young politicians tried 
their skill in the discussion of the affairs of State. He took his degree 
of M.A. in 1825, was called to the bar in 1826, and contributed exten- 
sively to Knight's Quarterly Magazine, in which liis first literary efforts 
appeared, including among others the ballads of "The Spanish Ar- 
mada " and " The Battle of Ivry." In 1825 he contributed to the Edin- 
burgh Review his celebrated article on Milton, and this was succeeded 
by numerous others on various themes, historical, political, and literary, 
which were afterward collected and published separately. 

Macaulay was a member of Parliament first for Colne, then for Leeds, 
and took part in the great discussions connected with the Reform Bill 
of 1832. In return for his services to his party, he was sent to India in 
1834 as a member of tlie Council, and while there wrote his famous 
essays on Lord Clive and Warren Hastings. In 1839 Macaulay returned 
to England, was elected member for Edinburgh, and, during the eight 
years of his connection with that city, held successively the offices of 
Secretary at War and Paymaster-General of the Forces. In 1842 he gave 
"c tb3 world his spirited " Lays of Ancient Rome." In 1847 he displeased 
his Edmburgh supporters, and in a pet they rejected him ; but in 1852 
they re-elected him of their own accord, and in this way endeavored to 
atone for the past. He devoted the interval between these two dates to 
his History of England, the first two volumes of which were published 
in 1848, two others making their appearance in 1855. They form a mag- 
nificent fragment of historical writing, embracing a period of little more 
than twelve years, from the accession of James II. to the Peace of Rys- 
wick, in 1697. A fifth volume, compiled from the papers which he left 

3 



4 LIFE OF MACAULAY. 

behind, and bringing tbe work down to the death of William III., 
was published posthumously in 1859. He retired from Parlianiont in 
1856, owing to failing health, and in the following year he was created 
a baron in consideration of his great literary merit. In 1859 he died 
suddenly of disease of the heart, and was buried in Westminster 
Abbey. 

Lord Maeaulay excelled as a poet and essayist, but he is chiefly illus- 
trious as a historian. In the opening chapter of his History of England 
the author announces his intention to write a history from the accession 
of James 11, down to a time within the memory of men still living. Its 
success was very great. History was no longer dry and uninviting, for 
Maeaulay had become a painter as well as a chronicler. The events of 
the past are depicted in such fresh and striking coloring that they have 
all the interest of absolute novelty. We have life-like portraits of the 
great men of the age, landscapes and street scenes, spirit-stirring de- 
scriptions of insurrections and trials and sieges, and graphic pictures 
of manners and customs. Maeaulay had a very wonderful memory, of 
which he was proud, and he was able to collect and retain stores of in- 
formation from all manner of old books, papers, and parchments, and 
to make use of them in the production of his history. He is not always 
impartial, but sufficiently so to be considered the best authority on that 
portion of history with which he deals. 

Macaulay's personal appearance was never better described than in 
two sentences of Praed's Introduction to Knight's Quarterly Magazine: 
" There comes up a short manly figure, marvelously upright, with a bad 
neckcloth, and one hand in his waistcoat pocket. Of regular beauty 
he had little to boast ; but in faces where there is an expression of great 
power, or great good humor, or both, you do not regret its absence." 
This picture, in which every touch is correct, tells us all that there is 
to be told. He had a massive head, and features of a powerful and 
rugged cast ; but so constantly lighted up by every joyful and ennobling 
emotion, that it mattered little if, when absolutely quiescent, his face 
was rather homely than handsome. While conversing at table, no one 
thought him otherwise than good-looking; but when he rose he was 
seen to be short and stout in figure. He at all times sat and stood 
straight, full, and square. He dressed badly, but not cheaply. His 
clothes, though ill put on, were good, and his wardrobe was always 
enormously over-stocked. Maeaulay was bored in the best of society, 
but took unceasing delight in children. He was the best of play- 
fellows unrivaled in the invention of games, and never weary of repeat- 
ing them. 



LORD MACAULAY. 1800-1859. 

"I always prophesied his greatness, from the first moment I saw 
him, then a very young and unknown man. There are no limits to his 
knowledge, on small subjects as well as great. He is like a book in 
breeches. " — Sydney Smith. 

" His learning is prodigious ; and perhaps the chief defects of his 
composition arise from the exuberant riches of the stores from which 
they are drawn. When warmed in his subject, he is thoroughly in 
earnest, and his language, in consequence, goes direct to the heart."— 
Alison. 



"Thfa exact style, the antitheses of ideas, the harmonious construc- 
tion, the artfully balanced paragraphs, the vigorous summaries, the 
regular sequence of thoughts, the frequent comparisons, the fine ar- 
rangement of the whole— not an idea or phrase of his writings in which 
the talent and the desire to explain does not shine forth."— raiwe. 



" Behind the external show and glittering vesture of his thoughts— 
beneath all his pomp of diction, aptness of illustration, splendor of 
imagery, and epigrammatic point and glare— a careful eye can easily 
discern the movement of a powerful and cultivated intellect, as it suc- 
cessively appears in the the well-trained logician, the discriminating 
critic, the comprehensive thinker, the practical and far-sighted states- 
man, and the student of universal literature."—^. P. Whipple. 



" Macaulay's essays, are remarkable for their brilliant rhetorical 
power, their splendid tone of coloring, and their affluence of illustra- 
tion with a wide range of reading, and the most docile and retentive 
memory. He pours over his theme all the treasures of a richly-stored 
mind, and sheds light upon it from all quarters. He excels in the 
delineation of historical characters, and in the art of carrying his 
reader into a distant period and reproducing the past with the dis- 
tinctness of the present."— G'eor^'e S. Hillard, 



PRINCIPAL WORKS 

Macaulay excelled as a poet, essayist, okator, and historian. 

As a Poet: Of the first fruits of our author's poetical genius perhaps 
the most admired are The Battle of Ivrij and The Spanish Armada. In 
1842, Macaulay gave to the world his Lays of Ancient Rome, consisting 
of the soul-stirring narrations of '^ Horatius Codes," " Battle of Lake 
of Regillus," '' Death of Virginia," (and "Prophecy of Capys." 

As an Essayist: Macaulay' s essay on Milton, published in the Eclin- 
burgh Review for Aug., 1825, was followed by essays, in all about forty, 
from the same pen for nearly a score of years, articles unsurpassed in 
varied and accurate learning, and in fervid eloquence and brilliancy, 
by any composition of the kind in the English language. The follow- 
ing is a list of the principal essays, with the years of publication, for 
the most part published in the Edinburgh Review : Milton, 1825 ; Machi- 
avelli, 1827; Dryden, 1828; History, 1828; Hallam's Constitutional 
History, 1828 ; Southey's Colloquies on Society, 1830 ; Montgomery's 
Poems, 1830; Southey's Edition of the The Bunyan's Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress, 1830; Moore's Byron, 1831 ; Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson, 1831 ; 
Nugent's Hampden, 1831 ; Lord Burleigh and his Times, 1832 ; Mira- 
beau, 1832 ; War of the Spanish Succession, 1833 ; Horace Walpole, 
1833; Earl of Chatham, 1834; Sir James Mackintosh, 1835; Lord 
Bacon, 1837 ; Sir William Temple, 1838 ; Church and State, 1839 ; 
Lord Clive, 1840 ; Ranke's History of the Popes, 1840; Comic Dra- 
matists of the Restoration, 18 H ; Lord Holland, 1841 ; Warren Hast- 
ings, Oct., 1841 ; Frederick the Great, 1842 ; Madame D'Arblay, 1843; 
Joseph Addison, 1843 ; Earl of Chatham,1844 ; Barere's Memoirs, 1844 ; 
Athenian Orators ; Mitford's Greece, and Mill's Essay on Government. 
Biographies of Dr. Johnson, Bunyan, William Pitt, Goldsmith, and 
others, written for the eighth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica 
(1857-8), were among the latest productions of Macaulay's pen. 

As an Orator: Macaulay's speeches, parliamentary and miscellane- 
ous, number nearly one hundred, generally held to be some of the 
most eloquent and instructive ever delivered before the English 
public. 
As a Historian : In 1848 appeared the first two volumes of Macaulay's 

6 



EEFEEEiq^CES. 7 

History of England, "from the accession of King James the Second 
down to a time which is within the memory of men still living." The 
third and fourth volumes were issued in 1855. The success of these 
volumes was great and immediate. A fifth volume, comprising all 
that he left ready for the press, and bringing the work down to the 
end of the year 1701, was published after his death. The great work 
thus remains a fragment of that originally projected. 



REFERENCES. 



For any desired information concerning Macaulay and his writings, 
consult, besides the ordinary reference books, Trevelyan's Life of 
Macaulay, a work of the deepest interest and full of all manner of 
details about the personal life of England's great historian. There is 
a little 'Dook by Adams, called Life Sketches of Macaulay, interesting 
from its ai lecdotes and sketches of Macaulay's personal career. E. 
P. Whipple has written one of the ablest criticisms of Macaulay's 
characteristics as an essayist which has ever been published. This 
article, from which we quote elsewhere, and for which Macaulay 
expressed great admiration, can be found in the first volume of Whip- 
ple's Eamys. See also a scholarly essay by Peter Bayne ; consult very 
full articles in "Allibone," the ''Encyclopedia Britannica," and the 
numerous references in Poole's Inde-x, to Periodical Literature. 



Note,— As an introduction to the study of this essay, the student will do well 
to read the whole or parts of Macaulay's article -on Lord Clive, or the principal 
points may be given orally by the teacher. A map ot India, locating the chief 
places of interest at the time of Clive and Hastings, should be drawn by the 
pupils on the blackboard and elsewhere as progress is made in studying the 
subject. The Student's Hume and Green's Short Hisfo^-y of the English People 
will prove of great help in explaining the historical and other references. 

Most of the larger "Speakers," compiled for school use, contain selections 
from the great orations delivered by Sheridan and Burke, during the trial of 
Hastings. Such extracts are of special interest in connection with the study of 
the succeeding text. 



Maoanlay and his works. 

TOPICS OF INQUIRY. 

1. Give some details of Macaulay's early life. 2. Anecdotes illustrating his 
precocity. 3. Incidents sliowing liis early love for books and reading. 4. Some 
details of his wonderful memory and his capacity for taking in at a glance the 
contents of a printed page. (Trevelyan's Life, Vol. I. ch. i.) 5. His career at 
Cambridge University. 6. The study of law and his literary work for Knight's 
Quarterly Magazine. 7. Incidents which led Macaulay to write his essay on 
Milton for the Edinburgh Heview— its success, 8. Mention the subjects of 
Macaulay's most important essays contributed for many years to the same peri- 
odical. 9. What are the chief characteristics of these celebrated essays ? 10. 
"What political honors were conferred upon Macaulay ? 11. His appointment to 
an office in India and his residence in that country. 12. His return to England 
and subsequent career in Parliament. 13. What fine martini ballads were pub- 
lished in 1842 ? 14. When was his History first published ?— its success ? 15. 
Give some details of the scope of this work. 16. What can you tell of Macau- 
lay's career as a public speaker ? 17. The death of the great historian in 1859 ? 
18. Macaulay's style— its prominent characteristics ? 19. What adverse criti- 
cisms have been made on his writings ? 20. How will you account for the 
remarkable popularity of all that Macaulay has written ? 21. Personal life of 
Macaulay— its chief characteristics? 22. Incidents and anecdotes to illustrate 
the same. 23. Macaulay's opinion of famous men and books. (Cf. Trevelyan.) 

24. What led Macaulay to write the essays on Lord Clive and Warren Hastings? 
25. Give in outline a few points in the lives of these two celebrated men. 26. 
Quote what Macaulay himself said about them. 27. Draw on the blackboard, 
or elsewhere, a map of India, locating the places of interest as noted in 
this essay. 28. Give in outline a few important events in the history of 
India before the time of Hastings. 29. Work up in some detail the following 
topics, giving in substance passages omitted in the succeeding pages: Nuncomar, 
Sir Philip Francis, Hyder Ali, and Impey, the infamous judge. 30. Topics for 
collateral reading : Lord Clive, " Black Hole," East India Company, Mogul 
Empire, Sheridan's Oration, Burke's Oration, Lord North, William Pitt, "Tlie 
Junius Letters," British India, Critical State of the British Empire During the 
time of Hastings, Result of England's foreign policy on the American colonies. 
31. What criticisim hns been made, and what can you make, on Macaulay's 
description of tlie trial of Hastings ?. 32. What do you think of Warren 
Hastings ?— as a governor-general ?— as a man ? Give your reasons for such aa 
opinion. 

8 



WAREEN HASTINGS. 



" Macaulay's splendid biographies of Clive and Hastings, by much the 
finest productions of the kind in the English language."— AZiso/i. 

" Macaulay's faithful but brilliant studies (Lord Clive and Warren 
Hastings) of our Eastern empire are to this day incomparably the most 
popular of his i^ov^&.^''—Trevelyan. 

PREFATORY NOTE. 

It was in lodia, on the spot, that Macaulay collected the facts which 
he worked up in so interesting and picturesque a manner in his essays 
on Lord Clive and Warren Hastings. The great essayist took special 
interest and pride in his India articles, and in his private correspond- 
ence says : " The paper on Lord Clive took greatly. That on Warren 
Hastings, though in my own opinion by no means equal to that on 
Clive, has been even more successful." Both of these able essays have 
been uniformly popular with the public. When published in separate 
forms, Clive and Hastings have sold nearly twice as well as the articles 
on the Earl of Chatham, nearly three times as well as the essay on Ad- 
dison, and nearly five times as well as the article on Byron. In a letter 
written to the editor of the Edinburgh Review, Macaulay outlined his 
proposed paper on Warren Hastings. It is interesting and instructive 
in connection with the study of the succeeding text. He says : " I am 
not quite sure that so vast a subject may not bear two articles. The 
scene of the first would lie principally in India. TheJRohilla War, the 
disputes of Hastings and his Council, the character of Francis, the 
(feath of Nuncomar, the rise of the empire of Hyder Ali, the seizure of 
Benares, and many othei- interesting matters, would furnish out such a 
paper. In the second, the scene would be changed to Westminster. 
There we should have the Coalition ; the India Bill ; the impeach- 
ment ; the characters of the noted men of that time, from Burke, who 
managed the prosecution of Hastings, down to the wretched Ton} 
Pasqu^n, who first defended and then libeled him. I hardly know a 
1* 9 



10 WARRElf HASTINGS. 

story so interesting, and of such various interests. And the central 
figure is in the highest degree striking and interesting, I tliink War- 
ren Hastings, though far from faultless, one of the greatest men that 
England ever produced. He had pre-eminent talents for government 
and great literary attainments too ; fine tastes, a princely spirit, and 
heroic equanimity in the midst of adversity and danger. " Mens aequa 
in arduis " (a mind serene amid difficulties) is the inscription under his 
picture in the Government Hall at Calcutta, and never was a more ap- 
propriate motto. The story has never been told as it deserves. The 
success of my paper on Clive has emboldened me." As a result of this 
literary correspondence, the essay on Warren Hastings was published 
in the Edinhurgh Review for October, 1841. It has been universally .id- 
mired for its style, of the greatest force and picturesqueness — full of 
allusion, illustration, grace, clearness and point. 

His Early Life. — Warren Hastings sprang from an ancient 
and illustrious race. It has been affirmed that his pedigree 
can be traced back to the great Danish sea-king vrhose sails 
were long the terror of both coasts of the British Channel, and 
who, after many fierce and doubtful struggles, yielded at last 
to the valor and genius of Alfred. But the undoubted splen- 
dor of the line of Hastings needs no illustration from fable. 
One branch of that line wore, in the fourteenth century, tlie 
coronet of Pembroke. From another branch sprung the re- 
lonowned Chamberlain, the faithful adherent of the White Eose, 
whose fate has furnished so striking a theme both to poets and 



Note.— The length of the entire essay on Warren Hastings is such that the 
Editor has been compelled to abridge the same. Several paragraphs of no 
special interest, certain sections of historical details and sundry passages criti- 
cising Mr. Gleig, the biographer of Hastings, have been omitted. The essay in 
its abridged form is complete in itself, and no part of Macaulay's language has 
in any respect been changed. 

3. Danisli Sea-King: Hasting or Hastings, a daring and successful 
Danish sea-king, defeated after many fierce conflicts by King Alfred, and driven 
out of England in 896. 

6. Alfred (848 or 849-901) : surnamed the Great, King of the West Saxons, 
afterwar'' sovereign of all England. Consult Hughes's Alfred the Great, 
Freeman's Norman Conquest, vol. 1, ch. ii, and Hume's England, vol. 1, eh. ii. 

10. Wliite Rose : The war of the Roses, between the Lancastrians (who 
chose the red rose as their emblem), and the Yorkists (who chose the white 
rose), began 14.55 and ended 1485. See reference in Shakespeare, in I. Henry 
Vl., act ii., sc. 4. The contest between King Charles I. and Parliament resulted 
in a Civil War, which began when the king set up his standard at Nottingham 
(1642). It resulted in the execution of the king in 1649. and the establishment 
9f the Comnaon wealth under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell (1653). 



WARREliT HASTINGS. 11 

to historians. His family received from the Tuclors the earl- 
dom of Huntingdon, which, after a long dispossession, was re- 
gained in our time by a series of events scarcely paralleled in 
romance. 

The lords of the manor of Daylesford, in "Worcestershire, 
claimed to be considered as the heads of this distinguished 
family. Tlie main stock, indeed, prospered less than some of 
the younger shoots. But the Daylesford family, though not 
ennobled, was wealthy and highly considered, till about two 20 
hundred years ago, it was overwhelmed by the great ruin of 
the civil war. The old seat at Daylesford still remained in the 
family ; but it could no longer be kept up ; and in the follow- 
ing generation it was sold to a merchant of London. 

Before this transfer took place, the last Hastings of Daylesfoj'd 
iiad presented his second son to the rectory of the parish in which 
the ancient residence of the family stood. The living was of little 
value ; and the situation of the poor clergyman, after the sale 
of the estate, was deplorable. He was constantly engaged in 
lawsuits about his tithes with the new lord of the manor, and 30 
was at length utterly ruined. His second son, Pynaston, an 
idle, worthless boy, married before he was sixteen, lost his 
wife in two years, and died in the West Indies, leaving to the 
care of his unfortunate father a little orphan, destined to strange 
and memorable vicissitudes of fortune. 

Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the 6th of Decem- 
ber, 1732. His mother died a few days later, and he was left 
dependent on his distressed grandfather. The child was early 
sent to the village school, where he learned his letters on the 
same bench with the sons of the peasantry. But no cloud 4° 
could overcast the dawn of so much genius and so much am- 
bition. The daily sight of the lands which his ancestors had 
possessed, and which had passed into the hands of strangers, 
filled his young brain with wild fancies and projects. He loved 
to hear stories of the wealth and greatness of his progenitors, 

12. Tiidors : The House of Tudor ruled England from the accession of Henry 
VII. to the death of Elizabeth in 1(503, 



12 WARREK HASTINGS. 

of their splendid housekeeping, their loyalty, and their valor. 
On one bright summer day, the boy, then just seven years old, 
lay on the bank of the rivulet which flows through the old do- 
main of his house to join the Isis. There, as threescore and ten 

50 years later he told the tale, rose in his mind a scheme which, 
through all the turns of his eventful career, v/as never aban- 
doned. He would recover the estate which had belonged to 
his fathers. He would be Hastings of Daylesford. This pur- 
pose, formed in infancy and poverty, grew stronger as his in- 
tellect expanded and as his fortune rose. He pursued his plan 
with that calm but indomitable force of will which was the 
most striking peculiarity of his character. When, under a 
tropical sun, he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, his hopes, 
amidst all the cares of war, finance, and legislation, still pointed 

60 to Daylesford. And when his long public life, so singularly 
checkered with good and evil, with glory and obloquy, had at 
length closed forever, it was to Daylesford that he retired to 
die. 

When he was eight years old, his uncle Howard determined 
to take charge of him, and to give him a liberal education. 
The boy went up to London, and was sent to a school at 
Kewington, where he was well taught, but ill fed. He always 
attributed the smallness of his stature to the hard and scanty 
fare of this seminary. At ten he was removed to Westminster 

70 school. 

Warren was distinguished among his comrades as an excel- 
lent swimmer, boatman, and scholar. At fourteen he was first 
in the examination for the foundation. His name in gilded 
letters on the walls of the dormitory still attests his victory 
over many older competitors. He stayed two years longer at the 
school, and was looking forward to a studentship at Christ 
Church, when an event happened which changed the whole 
course of his life. Howard Hastings died, bequeathing his 

70. 'Westminster Scliool : A large school in London founded by Queen 
Elizabeth. 

77. Christ Clmrcli : Largest of all the Oxford colleges, founded by Car- 
dinal Wolsey in 1525. 



WAEREK HASTIIJGS. 13 

nephew to the care of a friend and distant relation, named 
Chiswick. This gentleman, though he did not absolutely 80 
refuse the charge, was desirous to rid himself of it as soon as 
possible. He had it in his power to obtain for the lad a writerr 
ship in the service of the East India Company. Whether the 
young adventurer, when once shipped off, made a fortune, or 
died of a liver complaint, he equally ceased to be a burden to 
anybody. Warren was accordingly removed from Westminster 
school, and placed for a few months at a commercial academy, 
to study arithmetic and book-keeping. In January, 1750, a few 
days after he had completed his seventeenth year, he sailed for 
Bengal, and arrived at his destination in the October follow- 90 
ing. 

He was immediately placed at a desk in the Secretary's 
office at Calcutta, and labored there during two years. 

After two years passed in keeping accounts at Calcutta, 
Hastings was sent up the country to Cossimbazar, a town 
which lies on the Hoogly, about a mile from Moorshedabad. 

82. "Writersliip : The establishment of each principal and independent seat 
of trade, in India, consisted of 'merchants, senior and junior, who conducted 
the trade ; faciors, who ordered goods, inspected and dispatched them ; and 
writers, who were clerks and book-keepers. A writer after five years became a 
factor, after three years more a merchant. From the senior merchants the 
members of council were chosen, and one of these last was selected as jyred- 
dent of the factory. The place where the factor carried on business was called 
a factory. 

83. East India Company : The original charter of this company was 
granted to a number of London merchants by Queen Elizabeth in 1600. The 
limits were enormous, giving the exclusive right to trade in the whole of the 
Indian and Pacific oceans. The charter was renewed from time to time with 
various modifications About 1612, the company obtained permission from 
several native princes to establish factories or agencies on the coast of Hinf^os- 
tan. The first beginning of Madras dates in 1640, of Calcutia in 1645, and of 
Bombay in 1665, as chief establishments of the company. In 1662, Charles II. 
gave permission to the company " to make war and peace on the native princes " 
—a privilege of Vv^hich it was not slow to avail itself for nearly two centuries. A 
constitution was established in 1702 which was maintained with little alteration 
as long as the company existed. The company obtained a renewal of its char- 
ter several times, but its powers was gradually lessened, until, by the act of 
1858, the whole of the company's powers were transferred to the crown. 

90. Ben$(al: At this time only the country between the Boglipoor and the 
sea was called Bengal. Now Bengal, or Lower Bengal, is the largest and most 
populous of the twelve great divisions of British India, and the province of 
Bengal is the eastern portion of Lower Bengal, and embraces more than one half 
of the population and one third of the whole area. 

93. Calcutta : Capital of British India and of Bengal, the largest emporium 
of trade in Asia, is situated on the Hooglv, eighty mile's from the sea. 

96. Hoogly or Hooglily : A branch of the Ganges at its delta. Two hun- 



14 WARREK HASTINGS. 

This was the abode of the prince who, by an authority ostensi- 
bly derived from the Mogul, but really independent, ruled the 
three great provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar. Here, 

loo during several years, Hastings was employed in making bargains 
for stuffs with native brokers. While he was thus engaged, 
Surajah Dowlah succeeded to the government, and declared 
war against the English. The defenseless settlement of Cos- 
simbazar, lying close to the tyrant's capital, was instantly 
seized. Hastings was sent a prisoner to Moorshedabad, but, 
in consequence of the humane intervention of the servants of 
tlie Dutch Company, was treated with indulgence. Meanwhile 
the nabob marched on Calcutta; the governor and the com- 
mandant lied ; the town and citadel were taken, and most of 

no the English prisoners perished in the Black Hole. 

In these events originated the greatness of Warren Hastings. He 
soon established a high character for abiUty and resolution. He be- 
came a member of Council in 1761, returned to England in 1764, and 
remained at home four years. Of his life at this time very little is 
known. Hastings soon began to look again toward India. He had 
little to attach liim to England, and his pecuniary embarrassments 
were great. The Directors appointed him a member of Council at 
Madras. In the spring of 1769, he embarked for India on board of the 
Duke of Orafton. 

Read the full text for the romantic affair with a lady, " his elegant 
Marian," who, afterward as Hastings's wife, wielded great influence 
over her celebrated husband. 



dred miles long ; its mouth is ten miles across. It is the only branch of the 
Ganges navigated by large vessels, and is the only one in the delta held sacred 
by the Hindoos. 

98. Mogul : A corruption of Mongol, or Mongolian. The name commonly 
applied to the empire founded in Hindostan in the 15th century by Baber, a 
descendant of Timor or Tamerlane. Although not a Mongolian himself, Baber's 
empire became generally known in Europe as the Mogul Kmpire. and the 
reigning sovereign was popularly called " The Great Mogul.'" After the death 
of the great ruler, Aurungzebe, in 1707, the empire began to decline. The last 
sovereign died, a pensioner of England, in 1806. 

99. Bahar: a province of Western Bengal. Orissa, a province to the south 
of Bengal, during Clive's rule. 

110. Black Hole; This horrible catastrophe, by which the nabob caused 
the whole of the prisoners taken, 146 in number, to be confined in an apartment 
twenty feet square— the " Black Hole of Calcutta,'" took place on the night of 
the 18th of June, 1756. The room had only two small windows, and these were 
obstructed by a veranda. The crush of the unhappy sufferers was dreadful ; 
and, after a night of agony from pressure, heat, thirst, and want of air, there 
were in the morning only twenty-three survivors, the ghastliest forms ever seen 
on e;irth. Read Macanlay's famous pen picture of this atrocious deed in his 
" Lord Clive," beginning " Then was committed that great crime," etc. 



WAEREI^ HASTII^GS. 15 

State of Affairs in India. — Hastings found the affairs of the 
Company in a very disorganized state on his arrival. In a very 
few months he effected an important reform. The Directors 
notified to him their high approbation, and were so much 
pleased with his conduct that they determined to place him at 
the head of the G-overnment of Bengal. Early in 1772 he 
quitted Fort St. George for his new post. 

When Hastings took his seat at the head of the Council- 
board, Bengal was still governed according to the system which 
Clive had^ devised. There were two governments, the real 120 
and the ostensible. The supreme power belonged to the Com- 
j)any, and was in truth the most despotic power that can be 
conceived. 

There was still a nabob of Bengal who lived at Moorsheda- 
bad, surrounded by princely magnificence. He was approached 
with outward marks of reverence, and his name was used in 
public instruments. But in the government of the country he 
had less real share than the youngest writer or cadet in the 
Company's service. 

The internal government of Bengal the English rulers dele- 130 
gated to a great native minister, who was stationed at Moor- 
shedabad. All military affairs, and, with the exception of what 
pertains to mere ceremonial, all foreign affairs, were withdrawn 
from his control ; but the other departments of the adminis- 
tration were entirely confided to him. His own stipend amounted 

120. liord Clive (1725-1774).— Founder of the British Empire in India, a skill- 
ful general and sagacious statesman. Clive entered the service of the East 
India Company as ensign in 1747. By his courage and sagacity he rose rapidly 
to distinction. Returned to England in 1753 and sent back as governor of Pert 
Saint David in 1755. The next year, Surajah Dowlah, Nabob of Bengal, cap- 
tured the Englifh garrison ot Fort William and smothered them in the "Black 
Hole" of Calcutta. Clive was sent to avenge this outrage. The fate of India 
was decided at the battle of Plassey (1757), where Clive, with 3.000 men, defeated 
about 60,000 of the enemy. Surajah was deposed and put to death. After this 
victory, by which the British rule was firmly established in India, Clive was 
appointed governor of Bengal. In 1760, he returned to England, immensely 
rich and was raised to the Irish peerage as Lord Clive, Baron of Plassey. He . 
was elected to Parliament and acquired great influence. Clive was sent to 
India in 1764, with supreme command, but returned in 1767. He was arraigned 
by the House for abusing his power in the acquisition of riches, but the charge 
was not sustained. He died by suicide in 1774. The reader is referred to 
Macaulay's masterly essay on " Lord Clive," as collateral reading in connection 
with the study of Warren Hastings. 



16 WARKE:N^ HASTINGS. 

to near a hundred thousand pounds sterling a year. The per- 
sonal allowance of the nabob, amounting to more than three 
hundred thousand pounds a year, passed through the minister's 
hands, and was, to a great extent, at his disposal. The collec- 

140 tion of the revenue, the administration of justice, the mainte- 
nance of order, were left to this high functionary ; and for the 
exercise of his immense power he was responsible to none but 
the British masters of the country. 

A situation so important, lucrative, and splendid, was natu- 
rally an object of ambition to the ablest and most powerful 
natives. Clive had found it difficult to decide between con- 
flicting pretensions. Two candidates stood out prominently 
from the crowd, each of them the representative of a race and 
of a religion. 

150 One of these was Mahommed Reza Khan, a Mussulman of 
Persian extraction, able, active, religious after the fashion of 
his people, and highly esteemed by them. 

His competitor was a Hindoo Brahmin, whose name has, by 
a terrible and melancholy event, been inseparably associated 
with that of Warren Hastings, the Mahai'ajah Nuncpmar. 
Clive decided in favor of the first. 

When Hastings became governor, Ma homm ed^Reza Khan had held 
power seven years. Through the intrigues oTNuncomar, the Direct- 
ors were influenced to order Hastings to arrest Reza Khan and mtike a 
strict inquiry into the whole administration of the province. This gave 
Hastings" an opportunity to carry into effect what he had long planned to 
do — to dissolve the double government. The office of minister was abol- 
ished. The internal administration was transferred to the servants of 
the Company. The nabob was no longer to have even an ostensible 
share in the government ; but he was still to receive a considerable 
annual allowance, and to be surrounded with the state of sovereignty. 
Some important office was given to Nuncomar's son ; but the wily 
Hindoo soon found that Hastings had made a tool of him. It was 
natural that the governor should be from that time an object of the 
most intense hatred to the vindictive Brahmin. As yet, however, it 
was necessary to suppress such feelings. The time was coming when 
that long animosity was to end in a desperate and deadly struggle. 

Extortion of Money. — In the meantime, Hastings was com- 
pelled to turn his attention to foreign affairs. The object of 
his diplomacy was at this time simply to get money. The 



WABEEK HASTINGS. 17 

finances of his government were in an embarrassed state ; and i6o 
this embarrassment he was determined to relieve by some 
means, fair or foul. One thing, indeed, is to be said in excuse 
for him. The pressure applied to him by his employers at 
home was such as only the highest virtue could have withstood, 
such as left him no choice except to commit great wrongs, or 
to resign his high post, and with that post all his hopes of for- 
tune and distinction. The Directors, it is true, never enjoined 
or applauded any crime. Far from it. Whoever examines 
their letters written at that time will find there many just and 
humane sentiments, many excellent precepts — in short, an ad- 17° 
mirable code of political ethics. 

Hastings saw that it was absolutely necessary for him to dis- 
regard either the moral discourses or the pecuniary requisitions 
of his employers. Being forced to disobey them in something, 
he had to consider what kind of disobedience they would most 
readily pardon; and he correctly judged that the safest course 
would be to neglect the sermons and to find the rupees. 

A mind so fertile as his, and so little restrained by conscien- 
tious scruples, speedily discovered several modes of relieving 
the financial embarrassments of the Government. The allow- 180 
ance of the Nabob of Bengal was reduced at a stroke from 
three hundred and twenty thousand pounds a year to half that 
sum.^The Company had bound itself to pay near three hun- 
dred thousand pounds a year to the Great Mogul, as a mark of 
homage for the provinces which he had intrusted to their care, 
and they had ceded to him the districts of Corah and Alla- 
habad. On the plea that the Mogul was not really independent, 
but merely a tool in the hands of others, Hastings determined 
to retract these concessions. He accordingly declared that the 
English would pay no more tribute, and sent troops to occupy 190 
Allahabad and Corah. The situation of these places was such 
that there would be little advantage and great expense in re- 

177. Rupees.— The rupee is an Indian silver coin, worth at this time about 
two shillings. 

186. Corah and AUalialbad — Districts and cities in the north-west provm 
ces of India, about 500 miles N. W. from Calcut<(a. 



18 WAKREiq- HASTIN^GS. 

taining them. Hastings, who wanted money and not territory, 
determined to sell them. A purchaser was not wanting. The 
rich province of Oude had, in the general dissolution of the 
Mogul Empire, fallen to the share of the great Mussulman 
house by which it is still governed. The Prince of Oude, 
though he held the power, did not venture to use the style of 
sovereignty. To the appellation of nabob * or viceroy he added 

200 that of vizier of the monarchy of Hindostan. Sujah Dowlah, 
then nabob vizier, was on excellent terms with the English. 
He had a large treasure. Allahabad and Corah were so situ- 
ated that they might be of use to him, and could be of none 
to the Company. The buyer and seller soon came to an under- 
standing ; and the provinces which had. been torn from the 
Mogul were made over to the G-overnment of Oude for about 
half a million sterling. 5' '-' ' '- 

Subjugation of the Brave Kohillas. — But there was another 
matter still more important to be settled by the vizier and the 

210 governor. The fate of a brave people was to be decided. It 
was decided in a manner which has left a lasting stain on the 
fame of Hastings and of England. 

The people of Central Asia had always been to the inhab- 
itants of India what the warriors of the German forests were 
to the subjects of the decaying monarchy of Rome. The dark, 
slender, and timid Hindoo shrunk from a conflict with the 
strong muscle and resolute spirit of the fair race which dwelt 
beyond the passes. 

The Emperors of Hindostan themselves came from the other 

220 side of the great mountain ridge ; and it had always been their 
practice to recruit their army from the hardy and valiant race 
from which their own illustrious house sprung. Among the 
military adventurers who were allured to the Mogul standards 



195. Oude.— A rich and prosperous province of India, N. W. of Bengal and 
south of the Himalaya mountains. 

* The word nabob is from the Hindoo, nawab, a deputy, or a governor, under 
the Mogul empire. Originally, " a native prince," but the word came to be ap- 
plied to any European who had amassed wealth in the East. Cf. an amusing 
passage toward the end of Macaulay's essay on Lord Clive. 



WAEREK HASTII^GS. 19 

from the neighborhood of Cabul and Candahar, were conspic- 
uous several gallant bands, known by the name of the Rohil- 
]as. Their services had been rewarded with large tracts of 
land in that fertile plain through which the Ramgunga flows 
from the snowy heights of Kumaon to join the Ganges. The 
Rohillas were distinguished from the other inhabitants of India 
by a peculiarly fair complexion. They were more honorably 23c 
distinguished by courage in war, and by skill in the arts of 
peace. While anarchy raged from Lahore to Cape Comorin, 
their little territory enjoyed the blessings of repose under the 
guardianship of valor. Agriculture and commerce flourished 
among them, nor were they negligent of rhetoric and poetry, 

Sujah Dowlah had set his heart on adding this rich district 
to his own principality. Right, or show of right, he had abso- 
lutely none. The Rohillas held their country by exactly the 
same title by which he held his, and had governed their country 
far better than his had ever been governed. Nor were they a 24a 
people whom it was perfectly safe to attack. As soldiers, they 
had not the steadiness which is seldom found except in com- 
pany with strict discipline, but their impetuous valor had been 
proved on many fields of battle. It was said that their chiefs, 
when united by common peril, could bring eighty thousand 
men into the field. Sujah Dowlah had himself seen them 
fight, and wisely shrunk from a conflict with them. There 
was in India one army, and only on_e, against which even those 
proud Caucasian tribes could not stand. It had been abun- 
dantly proved that neither tenfold odds, nor the martial ardor 25a 
of the boldest Asiatic nations, could avail aught against English 
science and resolution. Was it possible to induce the Governor 
of Bengal to let out to hire the irresistible energies of the im- 



224. Cabul.— Written also Caboul, Cabool, and Kabul. Capital of Afghanis- 
tan. Candahar, capital of Central Afghanistan, 200 miles S. W. of Cabul. 
These cities came into note during the recent war of Ej^land with the Afghans. 

226. Rohillas.— Inhabitants of Kohilcund, a division of Northern India, 
having the Ganges on the west and south, Oude on the east, and the Himalayas 
on the north and north-east. 

232. Ijahore.— The capital city of the Punjab, and of the Lahore division 
and district. 



20 WAEREK HASTINGS. 

perial people, the skill against which the ablest chiefs of Hin- 
dostan were helpless as infants ? 

This was what the nabob vizier asked, and what Hastings 
granted. A bargain was soon struck. Each of the negotiators 
had what the other wanted. Hastings was in need of funds 
to carry on the government of Bengal, and to send remittances 
360 to London, and Sujah Dowlah had an ample revenue. It 
was agreed that an English army should be lent to the nabob 
vizier, and that, for the loan, he should pay four hundred 
thousand pounds sterling, besides defraying all the charge of 
the troops while employed in his service. J^,yt vj^' - 

The Rohillas expostulated, entreated, offered a large ransom, 
but in vain. They then resolved to defend themselves to the 
last. A bloody battle was fought. The dastardly sovereign 
of Oude fled from the field. The English were left unsup- 
ported, but their fire and their charge were irresistible. It 
270 was not, however, till the most distinguished chiefs had fallen, 
fighting bravely at the head of their troops, that the Rohilla 
ranks gave way. 

Then the horrors of Indian war were let loose on the fair 
valleys and cities of Rohilcund. The whole country was in a 
blaze. More than a hundred thousand people fled from their 
homes to pestilential jungles, preferring famine, and fever, and 
the haunts of tigers, to the tyranny of him to whom an English 
and a Christian government had, for shameful lucre, sold their 
substance, and their blood, and the honor of their wives and 
280 daughters. 

We hasten to the end of this sad and disgraceful story. 
The war ceased. The finest population in India was subjected 
to a greedy, cowardly, cruel tyrant. Commerce and agriculture 
languished. The rich province which had tempted the cupidity 
of Sujah Dowlah became the most miserable part even of his 
miserable dominions. 

Whatever we may think of the morality of Hastings, it can- 
not be denied that the financial results of his policy did honor 
to his talents. In less than two years after he assumed 



WAEREN HASTINGS. 21 \ 

the government, he hady without imposmg any additional 290 
burdens on the people subject to his authority, added about 
four hundred and fifty thousand pounds to the annual income ^^* 
of the Company, besides procuring about a million in ready 
money. He had also relieved the finances of Bengal from 
military expenditure, amounting to near a quarter of a million 
a year, and had thrown that charge on the Nabob of Oude. 
There can be no doubt that this was a result which, if it had 
been obtained by honest means, would have entitled him to the 
warmest gratitude of his country, and which, by whatever 
means obtained, proved that he possessed great talents fors^^ 
administration. 

In the mean time Parliament had been engaged in long and grave 
discussions on Asiatic afEairs. The ministry of Lord North, in the ses- 
sion of 1773, introduced a measure which made a considerable change 
in the constitution of the Indian Government. This law, known by 
the name of the Regulating Act, provided that the Presidency of Ben- 
gal should exercise a control over the other possessions of the Com- 
pany ; that the chief of that presidency should be styled governor- 
general ; that he should be assisted by four councillors ; and that a 
supreme court of judicature, consisting of a chief -justice and three in- 
ferior judges, should be established at Calcutta. This court was made 
independent of the governor-general and Council, and was intrusted 
with a civil and criminal jurisdiction of immense and, at the same time, 
of undefined extent. 

The Governor-general and councillors were named in the act, and 
were to hold their situations for five years. Hastings was to be the 
first governor-general. 

The ablest of the new councillors was, beyond all doubt, Philip Fran- 
cis, who, it is claimed by the best authorities, wrote the famous " Ju- 
nius " letters. Macauluy at this place in the essay interpolates a long 
but interesting discussion of the authorship of these letters. 

With the three new councihors came out the judges of the Supreme 
Court. The chief-justice was Sir Elijah Impey. He was an old ac- 
quaintance of Hastings ; and it is probable that the governor-general, 
if he had searched through all tke inns of court, could not have 
found an equally serviceable tool. 

It is not necessary to allude to the bitter quarrels which took place 
between Hastings and his supporters on the one side, and Francis and 
his friends on the other. Hastings was in the minority. The natives 
soon found it out. Charges against the governor-general began to 
pour in. Nuncomar saw his opportunity to be avenged upon his old 
enemy. He made serious charges against Hastings, who was now in a 
most painful situation, and forced to place his resignation in the hands 
of a trusty agent in London. It was not safe to drive to despair a man 
of such resource and of such determination as Hastings. It will be re- 
membered that the Supreme Court was, within the sphere of its own 
duties, altogether independent of the government. Hastings, with his 



22 WARREK HASTINGS. 

usual sagacity, had seen how much advantage he might derive from 
possessing himself of this stronghold, and he had acted accordingly. 
The judges, especially the chief-justice, were hostile to the majority of 
the Council. The time had now come for putting this formidable ma- 
chinery into action. 

Execution of Nuncomar, — On a sudden, Calcutta was as- 
tounded by the news that Nuncomar had been taken up on a 
charge of felony, committed, and thrown into a common jail. 
The crime imputed to him was that six years before he had 
forged a bond. The ostensible prosecutor was a native. But 
it was then, and still is, the opinion of everybody, idiots and 
biographers excepted, that Hastings was the real mover in the 
business. 

310 The rage of the majority rose to the highest point. They 
protested against the proceedings of the Supreme Court, and 
sent several urgent messages to the judges demanding that 
Nuncomar should be admitted to bail. The judges returned 
haughty and resolute answers. In the mean time the assizes 
commenced: a true bill was found, and Nuncomar was brought 
before Sir Elijah Impey and a jury composed of Englishmen. 
A great quantity of contradictory swearing, and the necessity 
of having every word of the evidence interpreted, protracted 
the trial to a most unusual length. At last a verdict of guilty 

330 was returned, and the chief-justice pronounced sentence of 
death on the prisoner. 

The excitement among all classes was great. Francis, and 
Francis's few English adherents, described the governor-gen- 
eral and the chief-justice as the worst of murderers. Claver- 
ing, it was said, swore that, even at the foot of the gallows, 
Nuncomar should be rescued. The bulk of the European so- 
ciety, though strongly attached to the Governor-general, could 



303. NMnconiar. — Macaulay devotes considerable space to a detailed 
description of this wily Hindoo chief. The text is here omitted. 

322. Sir Pliilip Francis (1740-1818).— An eminent English statesman, ap- 
pointed a member of the Supreme Council of Bengal in 1773, when Hastings 
was President. Pie was the leader of the party which opposed Hastings, and 
took a prominent part in the great trial. He is generally believed to he the 
author of the famous "Junius Letters," although he always denied the chargC' 
Brougham and Macaulay believed that Francis was "Junius." 



WARREK HASTINGS. 23 

not but feel compassion for a man who, with all his crimes, 
had so long filled so large a space in their sight, who had been 
great and j^owerful before the British Empire in India began 330 
to exist. The feeling of the Hindoos was infinitely stronger. 
They were, indeed, not a people to strike one blow for their 
countryman. But his sentence filled them with sorrow and 
dismay. Tried even by their low standard of morality, he was 
a bad man. But, bad as he was, he was the liead of their race 
and religion, a Brahmin of the Brahmins. He had inherited 
the purest and liighest caste. He had practised with the 
greatest punctuality all those ceremonies to which the super- 
stitious Bengalees ascribe far more importance than to the cor- 
rect discharge of the social duties. According to their old 34° 
national laws, a Brahmin could not be put to death for any 
crime whatever. 

The day drew near; and Nuncomar prepared himself to die 
with that quiet fortitude with which the Bengalee, so effem- 
inately timid in personal conflict, often encounters calamities for 
which there is no remedy. The sheriff", with the humanity 
which is seldom wanting in an English gentleman, visited the 
prisoner on the eve of the execution, and assured him that no 
indulgence consistent with the law should be refused to him. 
Nuncomar expressed his gratitude with great politeness and 350 
unaltered composure. Not a muscle of his face moved ; not a 
sigh broke from him. The sheriff withdrew, greatly agitated 
by what had passed, and Nuncomar sat composedly down to 
write notes and examine accounts. 

The next morning, before the sun was in his power, an im- 
mense concourse assembled round the place where the gallows 
had been set up. Grief and horror were on every face; yet to 
the last the multitude could hardly believe that the English 
really purposed to take the life of the great Brahmin. At length 
the mournful procession came through the crowd. Nuncomar 360 

336. Brahmin (Sanskrit, Brahman, Bramiii, and first deity of the Hindoo 
triad, tlie creator of tlie world, Brahma). A person of the upper and sacerdotal 
caste among the Hindoos. 



24 WAEEEN" HASTIJsTGS. 

sat up in his palanquin, and looked around him with unaltered 
serenity. He had just parted from those Avho were most nearly 
connected with him. Their cries and contortions had appalled 
the European ministers of justice, but had not produced the 
smallest effect on the iron stoicism of the prisoner. The only 
anxiety which he expressed was that men of his own j)riestly 
caste might be in attendance to take charge of his corpse. Pie 
again desired to be remembered to his friends in the Council, 
mounted the scaffold with firmness, and gave the signal to the 

370 executioner. The moment that the drop fell a howl of sorrow 
and despair rose from the innumerable spectators. Hundreds 
turned away their faces from the poUuting sight, fled with loud 
wailings toward the Hoogly, and plunged into its holy waters, 
as if to purify themselves from the guilt of having looked on 
such a crime. These feelings were not confined to Calcutta. 
The whole province was greatly excited; and the population of 
Dacca, in particular, gave strong signs of grief and dismay. 

While we liave not the least doubt that this memorable ex- 
ecution is to be attributed to Hastings, we doubt whether it can 

380 with justice be reckoned among his crimes. That his conduct 
was dictated by a profound policy is evident. He was in a 
minority in Council. It was possible that he might long be in 
a minority. He knew the native character well. He knew in 
what abundance accusations are certain to flow in against the 
most innocent inhabitant of India who is under the frown of 
power. Under these circumstances, the persecuted statesman 
resolved to teach the whole crew of accusers and witnesses 
that, though in a minority at the Council-board, he was still to 
be feared. The lesson which he gave them was indeed a lesson 

390 not to be forgotten. The head of the combination which had 

377. Dacca.— A division, district, and city of Bengal on the Lower Ganges. 
The city of Dacca is 155 miles N. E. of Calcutta. 

Note.— It is a remarkable circumstance that one of the letters of Hastings 
to Dr. Johnson bears date a very few hours after the death of Nuncomar. 
While the whole settlement was in commotion, while a mighty and ancient 
priesthood were weeping over the remains of their chief, the conqueror in that 
deadly grapple sat down, with characteristic self-possession, to write about the 
"Tour to the Hebrides,'' Jones's "Persian Grammar," and the history, tradi- 
tions, arts, and natural productions of India.— Macaulay. 



WARREl?' HASTINGS. 26 

been formed against him, the richest, the most powerful, the 
most artful of the Hindoos, distinguished by the favor of those 
who then held the government, fenced round by the supersti- 
tious reverence of millions, was hanged in broad day before 
many thousands of people. From that moment the conviction 
of every native was that it was safer to take the part of Hast- 
ings in a minority than that of Francis in a majority ; and that he 
who was so venturous as to join in running down the governor- 
general might chance, in the phrase of the Eastern poet, to find 
a tiger while beating the jungle for a deer. The voices of a 40c 
thousand informers were silenced in an instant. From that 
time, whatever difficulties Hastings might have to encounter, 
he was never molested by accusations from natives of India. 

In the meantime, the Directors took part with the majority, and 
censured Hastings. An unsuccessful attempt was made to displace 
him. Hastings's agent produced the letter of resignation, and Mr. 
Wheeler was sent out to succeed the Governor-general. By the death 
of an opponent in the Council and an appeal to the Supreme Court, 
Hastings meanwhile had regained the casting vote and full supremacy. 
England now became involved in foreign wars, and her public interests 
were exposed to such fearful dangers in every quarter tliat all designs 
against Hastings were di'opped, and he was quietly reappointed for 
another term of five years. The remarkable executive ability and 
energy of the Governor-general were of incalculable service to his 
country in this crisis of affairs in India. The dangers of the Empire 
induced both Hastings and Francis to forget for the time their private 
enmities, and to co-operate heartily for the general good. 

Reign of Terror, — Harmony, indeed, was never more neces- 
sary ; for at this moment internal calamities, more formidable 
than war itself, menaced Bengal. The authors of the Regu- 
lating Act of 1773 had established two independent powers— 
the one judicial, the other political ; and with a carelessness 
scandalously common in English legislation, had omitted to 
define the limits of either. The judges took advantage of the 41° 
indistinctness, and attempted to draw to themselves supreme 
authority, not only within Calcutta, but through the whole of 
the great territory subject to the Presidency of Fort William. 
The strongest feelings of our nature — honor, religion, female 
modest}^ — rose up against the innovation. Arrest on mesne proc- 
'2 



26 WARREl^ HASTIl^^GS. 

ess was the first step in most civil proceedings : and to a native 
of rank arrest was not merely a restraint, but a foul personal in- 
dignity. That the apartments of a woman of quality should be 
entered by strange men, or that her face should be seen by 

420 them, are, in the East, intolerable outrages — outrages which 
are more dreaded than death, and which can be expiated only 
by the shedding of blood. To these outrages the most distin- 
guished families of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa were now ex- 
posed. A reign of terror began, of terror heightened by mystery ; 
for even that which was endured was less horrible than that 
which was anticipated. ISTo man knew what was next to be 
expected from this strange tribunal. It came from beyond the 
black water — as the people of India, with mysterious horror, 
call the sea. It consisted of judges not one of whom was 

430 familiar with the usages of the millions over whom they 
claimed boundless authority. Its records were kept in un- 
known characters; its sentences were pronounced in unknown 
sounds. It had already collected round itself an army of the 
worst part of the native population: informers, and false wit- 
nesses, and common barrators, and agents of chicane. Many 
natives, highly considered among their countrymen, were 
seized, hurried up to Calcutta, flung into the common jail, 
not for any crime even imputed, not for any debt that had 
been proved, but merely as a precaution till their cause should 

440 come to trial. There were instances in which men of the most 
venerable dignity, persecuted without a cause by extortioners, 
died of rage and shame in the gripe of the vile alguazils of 
Impey. 

The chief-justice proceeded to the wildest excesses. The 
Governor-general and all the Members of Council were served 
with writs, calling on them to appear before the king's jus- 
tices, and to answer for their public acts. This was too much. 
Hastings, with just scorn, refused to obey the call, set at 
liberty the persons wrongfully detained by the court, and took 

442. Alguazil (Sp. alguacU).—An inferior officer of justice. 



WABKEK HASTII^GS. 27 

measures for resisting the outrageous proceedings of the sheriffs' 4sa 
officers, if necessary, by the sword. But he had in view another 
device which might prevent the necessity of an appeal to arms. 
He was seldom at a loss for an expedient, and he knew Impey 
well. The expedient, in this case, was a very simple one — 
neither more nor less than a bribe. Impey was, by act of 
Parliament, a judge, independent of the Government of Ben- 
gal, and entitled to a salary of eight thousand a year. Hast- 
ings proposed to make him also a judge in the Company's 
service, removable at the pleasure of the Government of Ben- 
gal ; and to give him, in that capacity, about eight thousand 460 
a year more. It was understood that, in consideration of this 
new salary, Impey would desist from urging the high preten- 
sions of his court. If he did urge these pretensions, the Govern- 
ment could, at a moment's notice, eject him from the new 
place which had been created for him. The bargain was 
struck ; Bengal was saved ; an appeal to force was averted ; and 
the chief-justice was rich, quiet, and infamous. 

A crisis now arrived with which Hastings alone was competent to 
deal. The English authorities in Southern India had provoked the 
great Hyder Ali to hostility without being prepared to repel it. An 
army of 90,000 well disciplined by French officers, came pouring down 
from the table-land of Mysore to the plains of Carnatic. Hyder was 
everywhere triumphant. Then it was that the fertile genius and 
serene courage of Hastings achieved their most signal triumph. 
Adopting a most vigorous policy, the Governor-general by his masterly 
movements in a few months retrieved the honor of the English arms. 
The financial embarrassment was extreme. A few years before this 
time Hastings had obtained relief by plundering the Mogul and en- 
slaving the Rohillas, nor were the resources of his fruitful mind by any 
means exhausted. His first design was on Benares, a city which, in 
wealth, population, dignity, and sanctity, was among the foremost of 
Asia. 

Plundering the Treasures of the Hindoo Prince, Cheyte 

Sing.- -The English Government now chose to wring money 
out of Cheyte Sing. It had formerly been convenient to treat 47a 
him as a sovereign prince ; it was now convenient to treat him 
as a subject. Dexterity inferior to that of Hastings could 
easily find, in the general chaos of laws and customs, argu- 
ments for either course. Hastings wanted a great supply. It 



28 WAEKEIT HASTINGS. 

was known that Cheyte Sing had a large revenue, and it was 
suspected that he had accumalated a treasure. Nor was he a 
favorite at Calcutta. He had, when the Governor-general was 
in great difficulties, courted the favor of Francis and Clayering. 
Hastings, who, less perhaps from evil passions than from policy, 

480 seldom left an injury unpunished, was not sorry that the fate 
of Cheyte Sing should teach neighboring princes the same 
lesson which the fate of Nuncomar had already impressed on 
the inhabitants of Bengal. 

In 1778, on the first breaking out of the war with France, 
Cheyte Sing was called upon to pay, in addition to his fixed 
tribute, an extraordinary contribution of fifty thousand pounds. 
In 1779, an equal sum was exacted. In 1780, the demand was 
renewed. 

The rajah, after the fashion of his countrymen, shufiled, so- 

490 licited, and pleaded poverty. The grasp of Hastings was not 
to be so eluded. He added to the requisition another ten 
thousand pounds as a fine for delay, and sent troops to exact 
the money. 

The money was paid. But this was not enough. The late 
events in the South of India had increased the financial em- 
barrassments of the Company. Hastings was determined to 
plunder Cheyte Sing, and, for that end, to fasten a quarrel on 
him. Accordingly, the rajah was now required to keep a body 
of cavalry for the service of the British Government. He 

500 objected and evaded. 

This was exactly what the Governor-general wanted. He 
had now a pretext for treating the Avealthiest of his vassals 
as a criminal. The plan was simply this, to demand larger and 
larger contributions till the rajah should be driven to remon- 
strate, then to call his remonstrance a crime, and to punish him 
by confiscating all his possessions. 

Cheyte Sing was in the greatest dismay. He offered two 
hundred thousand pounds to propitiate the British Govern- 
ment. But Hastings replied that nothing less than half a mill- 

510 ion would be accepted. Nay, he began to think of selling 



WAREEK HASTINGS. 29 

Benares to Oude, as he liacl formerly sold Allahabad and 
Rohilcund. The matter was one which could not be well man- 
aged at a distance ; and Hastings resolved to visit Benares. 

Cheyte Sing received his liege lord with every mark of rev- 
erence, came near sixty miles, with his guards, to meet and 
escort the illustrious visitor, and expressed his deep concern at 
the displeasure of the English. Having arrived at Benares, 
Hastings sent to the rajah a paper containing the demands of 
the Government of Bengal. The rajah, in reply, attempted 
to clear himself from the accusations brought against him. t-ao 
Hastings, w^ho wanted money and not excuses, was not to be 
put off by the ordinary artifices of Eastern negotiation. He 
instantly ordered the rajah to be arrested and placed under the 
custody of two companies of Sepoys. 

In taking these strong measures, Hastings scarcely showed 
his usual judgment. He was now in a land far more favorable 
to the vigor of the human frame than the Delta of the Ganges ; 
in a land fruitful of soldiers who have been found worthy to 
follow English battalions to the charge and into the breach. 
The rajah was popular among his subjects. His administra- s^ 
tion had been mild ; and the prosperity of the district which 
he governed presented a striking contrast to the depressed 
state of the provinces which were cursed by the tyranny of the 
nabob vizier. The national and religious prejudices with 
which the English were regarded throughout India were pecul- 
iarly intense in the metropolis of the Brahminical superstition. 
It can therefore scarcely be doubted that the Governor-general, 
before he outraged the dignity of Cheyte Sing by an arrest, 
ought to have assembled a force capable of bearing down all 
opposition. This had not been done, S4<^ 

The streets surrounding the palace were filled by an immense 
multitude, of whom a large proportion, as is usual in Upper 
India, wore arms. The tumult became a fight, and the fight a 

513. Benares.— One of the most ancient and renowned cities of the world, 
situated on the river Ganges, 390 miles N. W. of Calcutta. It is the religious 
capital of the Hindoos and the chief centre of Brahminical learning. A divis- 
ion and district of India has the same name. 



30 WAKEEiq^ HASTIiq^GS. 

massacre. The English officers defended themselves with des- 
perate courage against overwhelming numbers, and fell, as 
became them, sword in hand. The Sepoys were butchered. 
The gates were forced. The captive prince, neglected by his 
jailers during the confusion, discovered an outlet which opened 
on the precipitous bank of the Ganges, let himself down to 

550 the water by a string made of the turbans of his attendants, 
found a boat, and escaped to the opposite shore. 

If Hastings had, by indiscreet violence, brought himself into 
a difficult and perilous situation, it is only just to acknowledge 
that he extricated himself with even more than his usual ability 
and presence of mind. He had only fifty men with him. The 
building in which he had taken ujd his residence was on every 
side blockaded by the insurgents. But his fortitude remained 
unshaken. The rajah from the other side of the river sent 
apologies and liberal offers. They were not even answered. 

560 Some subtle and enterprising men were found who undertook 
to pass through the throng of enemies, and to convey the in- 
telligence of the late events to the English. Instructions for 
the negotiations were needed ; and the Governor-general framed 
them in that situation of extreme danger with as much com- 
posure as if he had been writing in his palace at Calcutta. 

The entire population of the district of Benares took arms. 
The fields were abandoned by the husbandmen, who thronged 
to defend their prince. The infection spread to Oude. Even 
Bahar was ripe for revolt. The hopes of Cheyte Sing began 

570 to rise. Instead of imploring mercy in the humble style of a 
vassal, he began to talk the language of a conqueror. But tlie 
English troops were now assembling fast. The officers, and 
even the private men, regarded the Governor-general with en- 
thusiastic attachment, and flew to his aid with an alacrity 

549. Ganges (Hindoo Gunqa, or Ganga, so called as flowing through the 
Gang, the earth, to heaven). The principal river of India traversing the north- 
west provinces and Bengal. It enters the Gulf of Bengal by numerous mouths. 
The delta of the Ganges begins 200 miles from the sea. The valley of the 
Ganges is one of the richest on the globe. This river is 1,960 miles long, and is 
navigable for large boats for 1,500 miles from its mouth. Cf. A passage in 
Macaulay's " Lord Clive " for a graphic description of the valley of the Ganges. 



WAKEEK HASTINGS. 3X 

which, as he boasted, had never been shown on any other occa- 
sion. The tumultuary army of the rajah was put to rout. His 
fastnesses were stormed. In a few hours, above thirty thou- 
sand men left his standard, and returned to their ordinary avo- 
cations. The unhappy prince fled from his country forever. 
His fair domain was added to the British dominions. 58<3 

By this revolution, an addition of two hundred thousand 
pounds a year was made to the revenues of the Company. But 
the immediate relief w^as not as great as had been ex2)ected. 
The treasure laid up by Cheyte Sing had been popularly esti- 
mated at a million sterling. It turned out to be about a fourth 
part of that sum ; and, such as it was, it was seized by the 
army, and divided as prize-money. 

The Infamoi^s Bargain with the Prince of Oudej Cruel 
Treatment of the Beg"unis, or Princesses of Oude. — Disap- 
pointed in his expectation from Benares, Hastings was more S9» 
violent than he would otherwise have been, in his dealings 
with Oude. Sujah Dowlah had long been dead. His son 
and successor, Asaph-ul-Dowlah, was one of the weakest and 
most vicious even of Eastern princes. His life was divided 
between torpid repose and the most odious forms of sensuality. 
It was only by the help of a British brigade that he could be 
secure from the aggressions of neighbors who despised his 
weakness, and from the vengeance of subjects who detested his 
tyranny. A brigade w^as furnished, and he engaged to defray 
the charge of paying and maintaining it. From that time his 6oc 
independence was at an end. Hastings was not a man to lose 
the advantage which he had thus gained. The nabob soon 
began to complain of the burden which he had undertaken to 
bear. 

Hastings had intended, after settling the affairs of Benares^ 
to visit Lucknow, and there to confer with Asaph-ul-Dowlah. 
But the obsequious courtesy of the nabob vizier prevented this 
visit. With a small train, he hastened to meet the Governor- 

606. liiicknow.— For many years the capital of Oude, 580 miles N.W. of Cal- 
cutta. Renowned for its siege and defense against the Sepoys in 1857. 



33 WAEKEl^ HASTINGS. 

general. An interview took place in the fortress which, from 

6iothe crest of the precipitous rock of Chunar, looks down on 
the waters of the Ganges. 

At first sight it might appear impossible that the negotiation 
should come to an amicable close. Hastings wanted an extra- 
ordinary supply of money. Asaph-ul-Dowlah wanted to obtain 
a remission of what he already owed. Such a difference seemed 
to admit of no compromise. There was, however, one course 
satisfactory to both sides, one course by which it was possible 
to relieve the finances both of Oude and of Bengal ; and tliat 
course was adopted. It was simply this, that the Governor- 

620 general and the nabob vizier should join to rob a third party ; 
and the third party whom they determined to rob was the 
parent of one of the robbers. 

The mother of the late nabob, and his wife, who was the 
mother of the present nabob, were known as the Begums 01 
Princesses of Oude. They had possessed great influence over 
Sujah Dowlah, and had, at his death, been left in possession 
of a splendid dotation. The domains of which they received 
the -rents and administered the government were of wide extent. 
The treasure hoarded by the late nabob, a treasure which was 

630 popularly estimated at near three millions sterling, was in their 
hands. 

Asaph-ul-Dowlah had already extorted considerable sums 
from his mother. She had at length appealed to the English, 
and the English had interfered. A solemn compact had been 
made, by which she consented to give her son some pecuniary 
assistance, and he in his turn promised never to commit any 
further invasion of her rights. This compact was formally 
guaranteed by the Government of Bengal. 

It was necessary to find some pretext for a confiscation incon- 

e^osistent, not merely with plighted faith, not merely with the 
ordinary rules of humanity and justice, but also with the great 
law of filial piety. A pretext was the last thing that Hastings 

- '^ 610. Cliunai' —A town on the Ganges, 17 miles S.W. of Benares. 



WARREK HASTINGS. 33 

was likely to want. The insurrection at Benares had produced 
disturbances in Oude. These disturbances it was convenient 
to impute to the princesses. The accused were furnished with 
no charge ; they were permitted to make no defense ; for the 
Governor-general wisely considered that, if he tried them, he 
might not be able to find a ground for plundering them. It 
was agreed between him and the nabob vizier that the noble 
ladies should, by a sweeping act of confiscation, be stripped of 650 
their domains and treasures for the benefit of the Company, 
and that the sums thus obtained should be accepted by the 
Government of Bengal in satisfaction of its claims on the 
Government of Oude. 

While Asaph-ul-Dowlah was at Chunar, he was completely 
subjugated by the clear and commanding intellect of the 
English statesman ; but, when they had separated, the vizier 
began to reflect with uneasiness on the engagements into which 
he had entered. His mother and grandmother protested and 
implored. His heart, deeply corrupted by absolute power and 660 
licentious pleasures, yet not naturally unfeeling, failed him in 
this crisis. Even the English resident at Lucknow, though 
hitherto devoted to Hastings, shrunk from extreme measures. 
But the Governor-general was inexorable. He wrote to the 
resident in terms of the greatest severity, and declared that, 
if the spoliation which had been agreed upon were not instantly 
carried into effect, he would himself go to Lucknow, and do 
that from which feebler minds recoiled with dismay. The 
resident, thus menaced, waited on his highness, and insisted 
that the treaty of Chunar should be carried into full and im- 67c 
mediate effect. Asaph-ul-Dowlah yielded, making at the same 
time a solemn protestation that he yielded to compulsion. The 
lands were resumed ; but the treasure was not so easily obtained. 
It was necessary to use violence. A body of the Company's 
troops marched to Fyzabad, and forced the gates of the 
palace. The princesses were confined to their own apartments. 

675. Fyza"bad.— Capital of Fyzabad, in Oude, 65 miles from Lucknow. 
3* 



34 WARRBK HASTINGS. 

But still tliey refused to submit. Some more stringent mode 
of coercion was to be found. A mode was found of which, 
even at this distance of time, we cannot speak witliout shame 

680 and sorrow. 

Sujah Dowlah had given his entire confidence to two 
eunuchs ; and after his death they remained at the head of the 
household of his widow. 

These men were, by the orders of the British Goverment, 
seized, imprisoned, ironed, starved almost to death, in order 
to extort money from the princesses. Yet this was not the 
worst. It was resolved by an English Government that these 
two infirm old men should be delivered to the tormentors. 
For that purpose they were removed to Lucknow. What 

690 horrors their dungeon there witnessed can only be guessed. 

While these barbarities were perpetrated at Lucknow, the 
princesses were still under duress at Fyzabad. Food was 
allowed to enter their apartments only in such scanty quantities 
that their female attendants were in danger of perishing with 
hunger. Month after month this cruelty continued, till at 
length, after twelve hundred thousand pounds had been wrung 
out of the princesses, Hastings began to think that he had 
leally got to the bottom of their coffers, and that no rigor 
could extort more. Then at length the wretched men who 

TDowere detained at Lucknow regained their liberty. When their 
irons were knocked off, and the doors of their prison opened, 
their quivering lips, the tears which ran down their cheeks, 
and the thanksgivings which they poured forth to the common 
Father of Mussulmans and Christians, melted even the stout 
hearts of the English warriors Mdio stood by. 

The state of India had for some time occupied much of the attention 
of the British Parliament. Two committees of the Commons sat on 
Eastern affairs. In the one Edmund Burke took the lead. The other 
was under the presidenc}' of the able and versatile Henry Dundas, 
then Lord Advocate of Scotland. Their reports breathed the spirit of 
:stern and indignant justice. The severest epithets were applied to 
iseveral of the measures of Hastings. It was resolved that the Com- 
pany ought to recall a governor-general who had brought such calam- 
ities upon the Indian people, and such dishonor on the British name. 
The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was limited, and Impey was 



WARREIsT HASTINGS. 35 

recalled.- The Company resolutely refused to dismiss Hastings from 
their service. Thus supported, Hastings remained at the head of the' 
government of Bengal till the spring of 1785. His administration, so 
eventful and stormy, closed in almost perfect quiet. 

General Review of the Administration of Hastings.— On a 

general review of the long administration of Hastings, it is 
impossible to deny that, against the great crimes by which it 
is blemished, we have to set off great public services, England 
had passed through a perilous crisis. In every part of the 710 
world, except one, she had been a loser. The only quarter of 
the world in which Britain had lost nothing was the quarter in 
which her interests had been committed to the care of Hastings, 
In spite of the utmost exertions both of European and Asiatic en- 
emies, the power of our country in the East had been greatly- 
augmented. 

His internal administration, with all its blemishes, gives him 
a title to be considered as one of the most remarkable men in 
our history. He dissolved the double government. He trans- 
ferred the direction of affairs to English hands. Out of a 720 
frightful anarchy, he reduced at least a rude and imperfect 
order. The whole organization by which justice was dispensed,, 
revenue collected, peace maintained throughout a territory not 
inferior in population to the dominions of Louis the Sixteenth; 
or of the Emperor Joseph, was formed and superintended by 
him. He boasted that every public office, without exception, 
which existed when he left Bengal, was his creation. Who- 
ever seriously considers what it is to construct from the 
beginning the whole of a machine so vast and complex as a 
government, will allow that what Hastings effected deserves 730 
high admiration. 

The just fame of Hastings rises still higher, when we reflect 
that he was not bred a statesman ; that he was sent from school 
to a counting-house ; and that he was employed during the 

724. lioiiis the Sixt.eeiitli (1754, executed 1793).— King of France and hus- 
band of Maria Antoinette. 

725. ICmperor Joseph (1741-1790).— Joseph II., Emperor of Germany, son. 
of Maria Theresa, of Austria.. 



36 WAREEK HASTINGS. 

prime of his manhood as a commercial agent, far from all in- 
tellectual society. 

Nor must we forget that all, or almost all, to whom, when 
placed at the head of affairs, he could apply for assistance, 
were persons who owed as little as himself, or less than him- 

740 self, to education. A minister in Europe finds himself, on the 
first day on which he commences his functions, surrounded by 
experienced public seiVants, the depositaries of official tradi- 
tions. Hastings had no such help. His owm reflection, his 
own energy, were to supply the place of all Downing Street 
and Somerset House. 

It must be added that, while engaged in this most arduous 
task, he was constantly trammeled by orders from home, and 
frequently borne down by a majority in Council. The preser- 
vation of an empire from a formidable combination of foreign 

750 enemies, the construction of a government in all its parts, 
were accomplished by him, while every ship brought out bales 
of censure from his employers, and while the records of every 
consultation were filled with acrimonious minutes by his col- 
leagues. We believe that there never was a public man whose 
temper was so severely tried. 

But the temper of Hastings was equal to almost any trial. 
It was not sweet ; but it was calm. Quick and vigorous as his 
intellect was, the patience with which he endured the most 
cruel vexations, till a remedy could be found, resembled the 

760 patience of stupidity. He seems to have been capable of re 
sentment, bitter and long enduring ; yet his resentment so sel- 
dom hurried him into any blunder, that it may be doubtea 
whether what appeared to be revenge was anything but policy. 
The eifect of this singular equanimity was that he always 
had the full command of all the resources of one of the most 
fertile minds that ever existed. Accordingly, no complication 

744. Downing Street.— The principal building in this street of London was 
given by George I. to Sir Robert Walpole, who accepted it for his office of First 
Lord of the Treasurj'. It has since been the official residence of snccessive 
prime ministers, and has given celebrity to the street in which it stands. 

745. Somerset House.— A building in the Strand, London, devoted to the 
accommodation of government and semi-public offices. 



WAEEEK HASTINGS. 37 

of perils and embarrassments could perplex him. For every 
difficulty he had a contrivance ready ; and, whatever may be 
thought of the justice and humanity of some of his contri- 
vances, it is certain that they seldom failed to serve the pur- 77^ 
pose for which they were designed. 

Together with this extraordinary talent for devising expedi- 
ents, Hastings possessed, in a very high degree, another talent 
scarcely less necessary to a man in his situation ; we mean the 
talent for conducting j^olitical controversy. Of the numerous 
servants of the Company who have distinguished themselves 
as framers of minutes and dispatches, Hastings stands at the 
head. He was indeed the person who gave to the official 
writing of the Indian governments the character which it stili 
retains. He was matched against no common antagonist. But 780 
even Francis was forced to acknowledge, with sullen and re- 
sentful candor, that there was no contending against the pen of 
Hastings. And, in truth, the Governor-general's power of 
making out a case, of perplexing what it was inconvenient that 
people should understand, and of setting in the clearest j)oint 
of view whatever would bear the light, was incomparable. 

And, since we have referred to his literary tastes, it would 
be most unjust not to praise the judicious encouragement 
which, as a ruler, he gave to liberal studies and curious re- 
searches. His patronage was extended, with prudent gener- 79° 
osity, to voyages, travels, experiments, publications. In 
Persian and Arabic literature he was deeply skilled. It was 
under his j)rotection that the Asiatic Society commenced its 
honorable career. 

He was the first foreign ruler who succeeded in gaining the 
confidence of the hereditary priests of India, and who induced 
them to lay open to English scholars the secrets of the old 
Brahminical theology and jurisprudence. 

It is indeed impossible to deny that, in the great art of in- 
spiring large masses of human beings with confidence and at- 800 
tachment, no ruler ever surpassed Hastings. What is peculiar 
to him is that, being the chief of a small band of strangers 



38 WAKEEI^ HASTINGS. 

who exercised boundless power over a great indigenous popu- 
lation, he made himself beloved both by the subject many and 
by the dominant few. Tlie affection felt for him by the civil 
service was singularly ardent and constant. Through all his 
disasters and perils, his brethren stood by him with steadfast 
loyalty. The army, at the same time, loved him as armie& 
have seldom loved any but the greatest chiefs who have led 

8io them to victory. Even in his disputes with distinguished mil- 
itary men, he could always count on the support of the military 
profession. While such was his empire over the hearts of his 
countrymen, he enjoyed among the natives a popularity such 
as other governors have perhaps better merited, but such as no 
other governor has been able to attain. He spoke their ver- 
nacular dialects with facility and precision. He was intimately 
acquainted with their feelings and usages. On one or two oc- 
casions, for great ends, he deliberately acted in defiance of 
their opinion ; but on such occasions he gained more in their 

820 respect than he lost in their love. In general, he carefully 
avoided all that could shock their national or religious preju- 
dices. The first English conquerors had been more rapacious 
and merciless even than the Mahrattas ; but that generation 
had passed away. For the first time within living memory, 
the province was placed under a government strong enough to 
prevent others from robbing, and not inclined to jAaj the rob- 
ber itself. ^ These things inspired good-wilL At the same 
time, the constant success of Hastings, and the manner in which 
he extricated himself from every difficulty, made him an object 

830 of superstitious admiration ; and the more than regal splendor 
which he sometimes displayed dazzled a people who have much 
in common with children. Even now, after the lapse of more 
than fifty years, the natives of India still talk of him as the 
greatest of the English ; and nurses sing children to sleej) with 



823. Mahrattas.— Inhabitants of the principal states of Central India. The 
Mahratta Confederation extended at one time in the 18th century from the prov- 
ince of Agra to Cape Comorin, but its power was soon afterward broken by 
the British. 



WARREK HASTINGS. 39 

a jingling ballad about the fleet horses and richly caparisoned 
elephants of Sahib Warren Hostein. 

Hastings arrived home in June, 1785. He was treated by the king 
with marked distinction. It is clear, however, that he was not sensible 
of the danger of his position. Macaulay gives in detail the errors 
made by this wily and sagacious statesman, and by which he was 
brought to the verge of ruin. In spite of many and serious mistakes, 
the general aspect of affairs was favorable to Hastings. The king was 
on his side. The Company and its servants were zealous in his cause. 
Among public men he had many ardent friends. From the ministry 
Hastings had every reason to expect support ; and the ministry was 
very powerful. The opposition was loud and vehement against him. 
But the opposition, though formidable from the wealth and influence 
of some of its members, and from the admirable talents and eloquence 
of others, was outnumbered in Parliament, and odious throughout the 
country. But there were two men whose indignation was not to be so 
appeased, Phili.pJ'rapcis^ and Edmund Burke. Francis had recently 
entered the'^ffouse of Commons', and had already established a charac- 
ter there for industry and ability. Neither lapse of years nor change 
of scene had mitigated the enmities which Francis had brought back 
from the East. The zeal of Burke was still fiercer; but it was far 
purer. The succeeding description of Burke is one of the most 
graphic passages to be found in Macaulay 's writings. , „> 

Edmund Burke. — His knowledge of India was such as few, 
even of those Europeans who have passed many years in that 
country, have attained, and such as certainly was never 'at- 
tained by any public man who had not quitted Europe. He 84c 
had studied the history, the laws, and the usages of the East 
with an industry such as is seldom found united to so much 
genius and so much sensibility. Others have perhaps been 
equally laborious, and have collected an equal mass of mate- 
rials ; but the manner in which Burke brought his higher 
powers of intellect to work on statements of facts and on 
tables of figures was peculiar to himself. In every part of 
those huge bales of Indian information which repelled almost 
all other readers, his mind, at once philosophical and poetical, 
found sometliing to instruct or to delight. His reason analyzed 85a 
and digested those vast and shapeless masses ; his imagination 

845. Edmund Burlce (1730-1797).— Orator and statesman, distino^uished over 
all the great men of his time for eloquence and political foresight. The trial of 
Hastings closed with another great and splendid oration by Burke, lasting over 
nine days. 



40 WAEREK HASTINGS. 

animated and colored them. Out of darkness, and dullness, 
and confusion, he formed a multitude of ingenious theories 
and vivid pictures. He had, in the highest degree, that noble 
faculty whereby man is able to live in the past and in the fu- 
fure, in the distant and in the unreal. India and its inhabitants 
were not to him, as to most Englishmen, mere names and ab- 
stractions, but a real country and a real people. The burning 
sun ; the strange vegetation of the palm and the cocoa tree ; 

!56o the rice-field ; the tank ; the huge trees, older than the Mogul 
Empire, under which the village crowds assemble ; the thatched 
roof of the peasant's hut ; the rich tracery of the mosque 
where the imaum prays with his face to Mecca ; the drums, 
and banners, and gaudy idols ; the devotee^winging in the 
air ; the graceful maiden, with the pitcher on her head, de- 
scending the steps to the river side ; the black faces ; the 
long beards ; the yellow streaks of sect ; the turbans and 
the flowing robes, the spears and the silver maces ; the 
elephants with their canopies of state ; the gorgeous palan- 

870 quin of the prince, and the close litter of the noble lady — all these 
things were to him as the objects amidst wliich his own life had 
been passed, as the objects which lay on the road between 
Beaconsfield and St. James's Street. All India was present 
to the eye of his mind, from the halls where suitors laid gold 
and perfumes at the feet of sovereigns to the wild moor where 
the gypsy camp was pitched, from tlie bazaar, humming like a 
beehive with the crowd of buyers and sellers, to the jungle 
where the lonely courier shakes his bunch of iron rings to 
scare away the hyenas. He had just as lively an idea of the 

880 insurrection at Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots, 
and of the execution of Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. 



863. Mecca.— A renowned citj' of Arabia, the chief seat of the Mohammedan 
religion. 
873. Beaconsfield — A town 23 miles from London. St. James's Street. 

—A fashionable thoroughfare of London. 
880. Lord George Gordon (1750-1793).— The leader of a f^reat mob which 

Elundered and pillapcd about London in 1780. Gordon was tried for hish treason, 
nt acauitted. He died in prison in 1793. A graphic description of these riots is 
worked into the plot of Dickens's Barnaby Budge. 



WARRE2<f HASTIKGS. 41 

Dodd. Oppression in Bengal was to him the same thing as 
oppression in the streets of London."^ 

Hastings, so poh'tic and successful in the East, committed nothing 

but blunders in Europe. Macaulay says that extreme measures against 

him would not have been adopted, if his ojvn conduct had been judi- 

1 cious. Both Hastings and his agent were impatient for the rewards 

' which, as theyconceived, were deferred only till Burke's attack should 

be over. The opposition was forced to pledge itself to a prosecution. 

Dn the 13th of June, 1786, Mr. Fox brought forward, with great ability 

i and eloquence, the charge respecting the treatment of Cheyte Sing. 

j To the astonishment of every one, Mr. Pitt supported Mr. Fox's mo- 

' tion, from jealousy, it is said, of the great power wielded by Hastings. 

Mr. Fox's motion was carried by a large majority. The opposition, 

flushed with victory and strongly supported by the public sympathy, 

proceeded to bring forward a succession of charges relating chiefly to 

j pecuniary transactions. The friends of Hastings were discouraged, 

I and having now no hope of being able to avert an impeachment, were 

not very strenuous in their exertions. At length the House, having 

j agreed to twenty articles of charge, directed Burke to go before the 

I Lords, and to impeach the late governor-general of high crimes and ^^ 

j misdemeanors. Hastings was at the same time arrested by the ser- 

I geant-at-arms, and carried to the bar of the Peers. 

j The session was now within ten days of its close. It was, therefore, 

impossible that any progress could be made in the trial till the next 

I year. Hastings was admitted to bail ; and further proceedings were 

1 postponed till the Houses should reassemble. 

1 

The Famous Trial of Warren Hastings. 

I In the mean time, the preparations for the trial had proceeded 
rapidly; and on the 13th of February, 1788, the sittings of the 

, court commenced. There have been spectacles more dazzling 
to the eye, more gorgeous with jewelry and cloth of gold, more 
attractive to grown-up children, than that which was then ex- 

] hibited at Westminster ; but, perhaps, there never was a spec- 

' tacle so well calculated to strike a highly cultivated, a reflect- 89c 
iug, an imaginative mind. All the various kinds of interest 
which belong to the near and to the distant, to the present 
and to the past, were collected on one spot and in one hour. 

882. William Dodd, D.D. (1729-1777).— A fashionable and eloquent 
preacher of London, chaplain to the kins;, and an author of some note. Dodd's 
Beauties of BhakeRmare is still known, lie was convicted of forgery and hung 
1 in 1777. 

j * " This passage, unsurpassed as it is in force of language and splendid fidelity 

I of detail by anything that Macaulay ever wrote or uttered, was inspired by sin- 

I cere and entire sympathy with that great statesman of whose humanity and 

breadth of view it is the merited, and not inadequate, panegyric."— IVet'e^j^an. 



42 WABEEiq- HASTINGS. 

All the talents and all the accomplishments which are devel- 
oped by liberty and civilization were now displayed, with 
every advantage that could be derived both from co-operation 
and from contrast. Every step in the proceedings carried the 
mind either backward, tlirough many troubled centuries, to 
the days when the foundations of our constitution were laid ; 

900 or far away, over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations 
living under strange stars, worshipping strange gods, and 
writing strange characters from right to left. The High Court 
of Parliament was to sit, according to forms handed down from 
the days of the Plantagenets, on an Englishman accused of 
exercising tyranny over the lord of the holy city of Benares, 
and over the ladies of the princely house of Oude. 

The j)lace was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall 
of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with accla- 
mations at the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which 

910 had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the just abso- 
lution of Somers, the hall where the eloquence of Strafford 
had for a moment awed and melted a victorious party inflamed 
with just resentment, the hall where Charles had confronted 

904. The Plantagenets, whose name was derived from the iilanta genista^ 
the Spanish broom-plant, a sprig of which was commonly worn by Geoffrey, 
the father of Henry II., reigned over England for more than three centuries, 
and to this family all the English monarchs belonged from Henry II. to Richard 
III. (1154-1485). In the long and prosperous reign of Edward III. (1327-1377), 
the three essential principles of the Ensilish government, as Hallam calls them, 
were established upon a firm footing. The third was the right of the Commons 
to inquire into public abuses, and to impeach public counsellors. 

908. AVilliam Rnfus.— William II. (1087-1100), surnamed i?;//ws, or the 5e(?, 
from the color of his hair, erected Westminster Hall, which still remains a noble 
specimen of the architecture of the time. 

910. The celebrated Lord Bacon was impeached for taking bribes and other 
corrupt practices. He was sentenced to pay a fine of £40,000, to be imprisoned 
in the Tower, and to be forever incapable of any office, place or employment. In 
consideration of his great merit, the king sooii released him from the Tower, 
remitted his fine and other parts of his sentence. 

911. liord Somers, Lord Chancellor in the reign of William III., was im- 
peached for alleged illegal practices, but through an irreconcilable diflierence be- 
tween the Commons and the Lords as to the mode of proceeding, was acquitted. 
_ 911. The Earl of Strafford was impeached and tried on a charge of treason 
m Westminster Hall. He gained many friends by the eloquence of his defense. 
Strafford was afterward tried by a '' bill of attainder," condemned to death, 
and beheaded in 1641. 

_ 913. Charles T.was impeached as "a tyrant, traitor, murderer.and a public and 
implacable enemy to the Commonwealth," and brought to trial before the high 
Court of Justice assembled in Westminster Hall, in 1649. With great temper 



WARRElir HASTIN^GS. 43 

the High Court of Justice with the phicid courage which has 
half redeemed his fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was 
wanting. The avenues were lined wdth grenadiers. The streets 
were kept clear by cavalry. ' The peers, robed in gold and er- 
mine, were marshalled by the heralds under Garter King-at- 
arms. The judges, in their vestments of state, attended to 
give advice on points of law. Near a hundred and seventy 92a 
lords, three-fourths of the Upper House as the Upper House 
then was, walked in solemn order from their usual place of as- 
sembling to the tribunal. The junior baron present led the 
way, Lord Heath field, recently ennobled, for his memorable 
defense of Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of France 
and Spain. The long procession was closed by the Duke of 
Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the realm, by the great dignitaries, 
and by the brothers and sons of the king. Last of all came 
the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble 
bearing. The gray old walls were hung with scarlet. The long 9;° 
galleries vere crowded by an audience such as has rarely ex- 
cited the fears or the emulation of an orator. There were 
gathered together, from all parts of a great, free, enlightened, 
and prosperous empire, grace and female loveliness, wit and 
learning, the representatives of every science and of every art. 
There were seated round the queen the fair-haired young 
daughters of the house of Brunswick. There the ambas- 
sadors of great kings and commonwealths gazed with ad- 
miration on a spectacle which no other country in the world 
could present. There Siddons, in the prime of her majestic 94c 

and dignity he declined to submit himself to the jurisdiction of the Court, on 
the ground that he was their hereditaiy king. 

924. Gibraltar endured a memorable siege of more than three j'ears at this time. 
It was bravely defended by Gen. Elliot, with a garrison of 5,000 men. The siege 
was continued until the peace in 1783. Gen. Elliot, on his return to England m 
1787, was raised to the peerage as Lord Heathfield, of Gibraltar. 

929. Prince of Wales.— Afterwards George IV. (1820-1830). At this time 
the Prince was 26 years of age, of dissolute habits and a spendthrift. 

937. TheCtueen.— Thewifeof George III., and Queen of England, was 
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Tlie House of Brunswick, or Han- 
over, includes the rulers of England from George I. to Victoria. 

940. Sarah Siddons (1755-1831).— The famous tragic actress. Her great 
character was Lady Macbeth. Mrs, Siddons vvas at this time 33 years old, and 
was at the height of her fame. 



44 WAKEEI!?^ HASTINGS. 

beauty, looked with emotion on a scene surpassing all the imi- 
tations of the stage. There the historian of the Roman Em- 
pire thought of the days when Cicero pleaded the cause 
of Sicily against Yerres, and when, before a senate which still 
retained some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered against 
the opi^ressor of Africa. There were seen, side by side, the 
greatest painter and the greatest scholar of the age. The 
spectacle had allured Reynolds from that easel which has pre- 
served to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many writers and 
950 statesmen, and the sweet smiles of so many noble matrons. It 
had induced Parr to suspend his labors in that dark and pro- 
found mine from wliich he had extracted a vast treasure of 
erudition. There were the members of that brilliant society 
which quoted, criticised, and exchanged repartees, under the 
rich peacock-hangings of Mrs. Montague. And there the 
ladies whose lips, more persuasive than those of Fox himself, 
had carried the Westminster election against palace and treas- 
ury, shone round Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. 

942. Historian of the Roman Empire.— Edward Gibbon (1737-1794),the 
great historian of The Decline and Fall of the Rmian Eminre^ finished his mas- 
terly work only the year before, in 1787. 

943. Cicero (106 B.C. --43 B.C.).— The illnstrioiis Roman orator. The infamous 
Verres, praetor of Sicily, was impeached (70 B.C.) by the Sicilians, for atrociouf 
acts of cruelty and rapine. Cicero conducted the prosecution of Verres, who 
employed Hortensius to defend him. On account of the overwhelming evidence 
against the accused, Cicero delivered only two of his seven orations before Verres 
himself went into voluntary exile ; but the others were published and remain a 
noble monimient of the great orator's versatile genius. 

945. Tacitus, — A celebrated Roman historian who flourished in the first cent- 
ury. His Hislory of Agricola and Annals rank high as Latin classics. 

947. Tlie Greatest Painter Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the cele- 
brated painter, the friend of Dr. Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, and other great 
men of his time. 

947. The Greatest Scholar.— Samuel Parr (1747-1825), enjo3'ed in his time 
an extraordinary reputation for scholarship. His voluminous works have long 
since been forgotten. See De Quincey's essay on Dr. Samuel Parr. 

955. Elizaheth Hlontague (1720-1800).— A celebrated English lady who 
lived in London after the death of her husband in 1775. She numbered among 
her visitors the most eminent people of the day ; Burke, Goldsmith, Dr. John- 
son, Reynolds and Hannah More. Mrs. Montague also made valuable contribu- 
tions to literature. Consult Boswe-U's Life of Br. Johnson. 

956. Charles James Fox (1749-1806).— The great statesman and orator. 
Burke called him " the greatest debater the world ever saw." 

Cf. Sir Walter Scott's well-known couplet— 

"Shed upon Fox's o;rave the tear, 
"Twill trickle to his rival's bier." 
958. Georgiana, Ditchess of Devonshire (17.57-1806).— An English 
lady, famed lor her beauty and accomplishments. She was a personal friend of 



WAEREK HASTINGS. 45 

The sergeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to 
the bar, and bent his knee. The culprit was indeed not un- gU 
worthy of that great presence. He had ruled an extensive 
and populous country, had made laws and treaties, had sent 
forth armies, had set up and pulled down princes. And in 
his high place he had so borne himself that all had feared him, 
that most had loved him, and that hatred itself could deny 
him no title to glory, except virtue. He looked like a great 
man, and not like a bad man. A person small and emaciated, 
yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated 
deference to the court, indicated also habitual self-possession 
and self-respect, a high and intellectual forehead, a brow pen- 970 
sive, but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face 
pale and worn, but serene, on which was written, as legibly as 
under the picture in the council-chamber at Calcutta, Mens 
mqua in arduis ; such was the aspect with which the great pro- 
consul presented himself to his judges. 

His counsel accompanied him, men all of whom were after- 
wards raised by their talents and learning to the highest posts 
in their profession. 

But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so much 
notice as the accusers. In the midst of the blaze of red dra- 981 
pery, a space had been fitted up with green benches and tables 
for the Commons. The managers, with Burke at their head, 
appeared in full dress. The collectors of gossip did not fail 
to remark that even Fox, generally so regardless of his appear- 
ance, had paid to the illustrious tribunal the compliment of 
wearing a bag and sword. Pitt had refused to be one of the 
conductors of the impeachment; and his commanding, copi- 
ous, and sonorous eloquence was wanting to that great muster 
of various talents. Age and blindness had unfitted Lord 

Fox, for whom, it is said, she bought votes by granting electors the privilege of 
kissing her. 

986. William Pitt (1759-1806).— Son of the great Earl of Chatham. His 
genius and ambition displayed themselves with almost unexampled precocity. 
At the age of 25, Pitt ruled absolutely over the English Cabinet, and was the most 
powerful subject that England had seen for many generations. For seventeen 
eventful years, he held his great position without a break. As a statesman and 
orator, Pitt was of the highest rank. Cf. Macaulay's biography of William Pitt. 



46 WARKEK HASTINGS. 

990 North for the duties of a public prosecutor ; and his friends 
were left without the help of his excellent sense, his tact, and 
his urbanity. But, in spite of the absence of these two dis- 
tinguished members of the Lower House, the box in which 
the managers stood contained an array of speakers such as 
perhaps had not appeared together since the great age of 
Athenian eloquence. There were Fox and Sheridan, the 
English Demosthenes and the English Hyperides. There 
was Burke, ignorant, indeed, or negligent, of the art of adapt- 
ing his reasonings and his style to the capacity and taste of 

1000 his hearers, but in amplitude of comprehension and richness 
of imagination superior to every orator, ancient or modern. 
There, with eyes reverentially fixed on Burke, appeared the 
finest gentleman of the age, his form developed by every manly 
exercise, his face beaming with intelligence and spirit, the 
ingenious, the chivalrous, the high-souled Windham. Nor, 
though surrounded by such men, did the youngest manager 
pass unnoticed. At an age when most of those who distin- 
guish themselves in life are still contending for prizes and 
fellowships at college, he had won for himself a conspicuoue 

toio place in Parliament. No advantage of fortune or connection 
was wanting that could set off to the height his splendid tal- 

990. Liord Nortli.— The prime minister of England during the Revolution. 
" A more amiable man never lived," says Earl Russell ; " a worse minister never 
since the Revolution governed this country." Lord North was 56 years old at 
this time. 

996. Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816).— The brilliant orator and 
author of the popular plays, The Rivals and School for Scandal, which have kept 
their popularity for over a hundred years. His great speech urging the impeach- 
ment of Hastings is still traditionally remembered as perhaps the very grandest 
triumph of oratory in a time prolific of such triumphs. 

997. Demosthenes (About 382 B.C.-322 B.C.).— The great Greek orator, 
generally regarded as the greatest orator that ever lived. 

997. Hyperides.— A famous Athenian orator put to death in 322 B.C. Cicero 
ranks him next to Demosthenes. His orations have all been lost. 

1005. 'William Windham (1750-1810V— Secretary of War under Mr. Pitt, 
an excellent speaker and a most effective debater. Fox. Pitt. Canning, Dr. John- 
son, and other great men of that time, gave Windham the highest praise. In his 
lifetime, he gained the nickname of " the weathercock." Notwithstanding his 
great talents and rare gifts, Windham appears in history as a mere shadow of a 
man. 

1006. The Youns^est Manager.- Charles Earl Grey (1764-184.5), Head of 
the government wliich carried the Reform Bill in 1832, and a distinguished 
English statesman. During the Grey ministry many great and important 
measures were passed. It was said that a more honorable man never lived. 



WARREN HASTINGS. 47 

enis and his unblemished honor. The charges and the an- 
swers of Hastings were first read. The ceremony occupied two 
whole days, and was rendered less tedious than it would other- 
wise have been by the silver voice and just emphasis of Cow- 
per, the clerk of the court, a near relation of the amiable poet. 
On the third day Burke rose. Four sittings were occupied by 
his opening speech, which was intended to be a general intro- 
duction to all the charges. With an exuberance of thought 
and a splendor of diction wdiich more than satisfied the highly 102a 
raised expectation of the audience, he described the character 
and institutions of the natives of India, recounted the circum- 
stances in which the Asiatic empire of Britain had originated, 
and set forth the coustitution of the Company and of the Eng- 
lish presidencies. Having thus attempted to communicate to 
his hearers an idea of Eastern society as vivid as that which 
existed in his own mind, he proceeded to arrraign the admin- 
istration of Hastings as systematically conducted in defiance of 
morality and public law. The energy and pathos of the great 
orator extorted expressions of unwonted admiration from the 103a 
ftern and hostile^ chancellor, and, for a moment, seemed to 
pierce even the resolute heart of the defendant. The ladies in 
the galleries, unaccustomed to such displays of eloquence, 
excited by the solemnity of the occasion, and perhaps not 
unwilling to display their taste and sensibility,, w^ere in a state 
of uncontrollable emotion. Handkerchiefs were pulled out; 
smelling bottles were handed round ; hysterical sobs and 
screams w^ere heard ; and Mrs. Sheridan was carried out in a 
fit. At length the orator concluded. Raising his voice till 
the old arches of Irish oak resounded, " Therefore, " said lie, 1040 
" hath it with all confidence been ordered by the Commons of 
Great Britain, that I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes 
and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Com- 

1015. Cowper, the Cleric of the Court.— This gentleman gave William 
Cowper, the poet, the lucrative office of Clerk of the Journals of the House of 
Lords, which was accepted ; but being obliged to appear personally at the bar 
of the House for exammation, the sensitive poet was seized with nervousness 
and dared not appear. 



48 WAEEEK HASTINGS. 

mons' House of Parliament, whose trust he has betrayed. I 
impeach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient 
honor he has sullied, I impeach him in the name of the peo- 
ple of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and 
whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the 
Wame of human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the 
1050 name of every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the 
common enemy and oppressor of all ! " 

When the deep murmur of various emotions had subsided, 
Mr. Fox rose to address the Lords respecting the course of 
proceeding to be followed. The wish of the accusers was 
that the court would bring to a close the investigation of the 
first charge before the second was opened. The wish of Hast- 
ings and of his counsel was that the managers should open all 
the charges, and produce all the evidence for the prosecution, 
before the defense began. The Lords retired to their own 
1060 House to consider the question. The division showed which 
way the inclination of the tribunal leaned. A majority of near 
three to one decided in favor of the course for which Hastings 
contended. 

"When the court sat again, Mr. Fox, assisted by Mr. Grey, 
opened the charge respecting Cheyte Sing, and several days 
were spent in reading papers and hearing witnesses. The next 
article was that relating to the Princesses of Oude. The con- 
duct of this part of the case was intrusted to Sheridan. The 
curiosity of the public to hear him was unbounded. His 
1070 sparkling and highly finished declamation lasted two days ; but 
the Hall was crowded to suffocation during the whole time. 

ji It- was said that fifty guineas had been paid for a single ticket. 

fSi" June was now far advanced. The session could not last 

much longer; and the progress which had been made in the 
impeachment was not very satisfactory. There were twenty 
charges. On two only of these had even the case for the pros- 
ecution been heard ; and it was now a year since Hastings had 
been admitted to bail. 

The interest taken by the public in the trial was great when 



WAEEEK HASTIKGS. 49 

the court began to sit, and rose to the height when Sheridan loSo 
spoke on the charge relating to the Begums. From that time 
the excitement went down fast. The sjDectacle had lost the 
attraction of novelty. The great displays of rhetoric were 
over. 

It is to be added that, in the spring of 1788, when the trial 
commenced, no important question, either of domestic or 
foreign policy, occupied the public mind. 

The proceedings in Westminster Hall, therefore, naturally 
attracted most of the attention of Parliament and of the 
country. It was the one great event of that season. But in 1090 
the following year the king's illness, the debates on the Regen- 
cy, the expectation of a change of ministry, completely diverted 
public attention from Indian affairs; and within a fortnight 
after George the Third had returned thanks in St. Paul's for 
his recovery, the States-general of France met at Yersailles. 
In the midst of the agitation produced by these events, the 
impeachment was for a time almost forgotten. 

The trial in the Hall went on languidly. In the session of 
1788, when the proceedings had the interest of novelty, and 
when the Peers had little other business before them, only noo 
thirty-five days were given to the impeachment. In 1789, the 
Regency Bill occupied the Upper House till the session was 
far advanced. During the whole year only seventeen days 
were given to the case of Hastings. It was clear that the mat- 
ter would be protracted to a length unprecedented in the annals 
of criminal law. 

A well-constituted tribunal, sitting regularly six days in the 
week, and nine hours in the day, would have brought the trial 
of Hastings to a close in less than three months. The Lords 
had not finished their work in seven years. mo 

At length, in the spring of 1795, the decision was pro- 

1102. Regency Bill.— In 1788, King George Ill.was seized with a violent ill- 
ness, which terminated in sj'mptomsof lunacy. Fox insisted on the exclusive 
right of the Prince of Wales to be appointed Regent, a position which Pitt tri- 
umphantly refuted. While the bill was in progress the king's convalescence 
was announced, February, 1789. 

3 " " 



50 WAKREN HASTIN'GS. 

nounced, near eight years after Hastings had been brought by 
the Sergeant-at-arms of the Commons to the bar of the Lords. 
On the last day of this great procedure the public curiosity, 
long suspended, seemed to be revived. Anxiety about the 
judgment there could be none ; for it had been fully ascertained 
that there was a great majority for the defendant. Neverthe- 
less, many wished to see the pageant, and the Hall was as much 
crowded as on the first day. But those who, having been 

II20 present on the first day, now bore a part in the proceedings of 
the last, were few ; and most of those few were altered men. 

As Hastings himself said, the arraignment had taken place 
before one generation, and the judgment was pronounced by 
another. The spectator could not look at the woolsack, or 
at the red benches of the Peers, or at the green benches of the 
Commons, without seeing something that reminded him of the 
instability of all human things, of the instability of power and 
fame and life, of the more lamentable instability of friendship. 
Of about a hundred and sixty nobles who walked in the proces- 

1130 sion on the first day, sixty had been laid in their family vaults. 
The great chiefs M^ere still living, and still in the full vigor of 
their genius. But their friendship was at an end. 

Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six found 
Hastings guilty on the charges relating to Cheyte Sing and to 
the Begums. On other charges, the majority in his favor was 
still greater. On some he was unanimously absolved. He 
was then called to the bar, was informed from the woolsack 
that the Lords had acquitted him, and was solemnly discharged. 
He bowed respectfully and retired. 

1140^ We have said that the decision had been fully expected. It 
was also generally approved. At the commencement of the 
trial there had been a strong and indeed unreasonable feeling 
against Hastings. At the close of the trial there was a feeling 
equally strong and equally unreasonable in his favor. The 

1124. Woolsack.— An act of Parliament was passed in the reig:n of Elizabeth 
to prevent the exportation of wool. In order to keep well in mind this source of 
national wealth, woolsacks were placed in the House of Lords as seats for the 
judges. The seat of the Lord Chancellor is to this day called the " woolsack." 



WAREEK HASTIiq^GS. 51 

iength of his trial made him an object of compassion. It was 
thought, and not without reason, that, even if he was guilty, 
he was still an ill-used man, and that an impeachment of 
eight years was more than a sufficient punishment. It was also 
felt that, though in the ordinary course of criminal law, a de- 
fendant is not allowed to set off his good actions against his ii5« 
crimes, a great jDolitical cause should be tried on different 
principles, and that a man who had governed an empire during 
thirteen years might liave done some very reprehensible things, 
and yet might be, on the whole, deserving of rewards and 
honors rather than of fine and imprisonment. The press, an 
instrument neglected by the prosecutors, was used by Hastings 
and his friends with great effect. Every ship, too, that arrived 
from Madras or Bengal brouglit a cuddy full of his admirers. 
Every gentleman from India spoke of the late governor-general 
as having deserved better, and having been treated worse, than 1160 
any man living. The effect of this testimony unanimously 
given by all persons who knew the East was naturally very 
great. 

Hastings was, however, safe. But in everything except 
character he would have been far better off if, when first im- 
peached, he had at once pleaded guilty, and paid a fine of 
fifty thousand pounds. He was a ruined man. The legal ex- 
penses of his defense had been enormous. The expenses which 
did not appear in his attorney's bill were perhaps larger still. 
Great sums had been laid out in bribing newspapers, rewarding 1170 
pamphleteers, and circulating tracts. Burke, so early as 1790, 
declared in the House of Commons that twenty thousand 
pounds had been employed in corrupting the press. It is certain 
that no controversial weapon, from the gravest reasoning to 
the coarsest ribaldry, was left unemployed. 

Still, if Hastings had practiced strict economy, he would, 
after all his losses, have had a moderate competence ; but in 
the management of his private affairs he was imprudent. 

1158. Madras.— A large and prosperous maritime city of India, on the Coro- 
mandel coast, founded by the English in 1640. 



52 ^ WAREEif HaSTIITGS. 

The dearest wish of his heart had always been to regain 

1180 Daylesford. At length, in the very year in which his trial 
commenced, the wish was accomplished ; and the domain, 
alienated more than seventy years before, returned to the de- 
scendant of its old lords. But the manor-house was a ruin ; 
and the grounds round it had, during many years, been utterly 
neglected. Hastings proceeded to build, to plant, to form a 
sheet of water, to excavate a grotto ; and, before he was dis- 
missed from the bar of the House of Lords, he had expended 
more than forty thousand pounds in adorning his seat. 
The general feeling both of the Directors and of the propri 

1190 etors of the East India Company was that he had great claims 
on them, that his services to them had been eminent, and that 
his misfortunes had been the effect of his zeal for their interest. 
An annuity for life of four thousand pounds was settled on 
Hastings, Tlie company was also permitted to lend him fifty 
thousand pounds, to be repaid by installments without interest. 
He had security and affluence, but not the power and dig- 
nity which, when he landed from India, he had reason to ex- 
pect. He was now too old a man to turn his mind to a new 
class of studies and duties. He had no chance of receiving any 

1200 mark of royal favor while Mr. Pitt remained in power ; and, 
when Mr. Pitt retired, Hastings was approaching his seventi- 
eth year. 

The last twenty-four years of his life were chiefly passed at 
Daylesford. He amused himself with embellishing his grounds, 
riding fine Arab horses, fattening prize -cattle, and trying to 
rear Indian animals and vegetables in England. Literature 
divided his attention with his conservatories and his menag- 
erie. He had always loved books, and they were now neces- 
sary to him. Though not a poet, in any high sense of the 

1210 word, he wrote neat and polished lines with great facility, and 
was fond of exercising this talent. 

When Hastings had passed many years in retirement, and 
had long outlived the common age of men, he again became 
for a short time an object of general attention. In 1813 the 



WAEREK HASTmaS. 53 

charter of the East India Company was renewed, and much 
discussion about Indian affairs took place in Parliament. It 
was determined to examine witnesses at the bar of the Com- 
mons, and Hastings was ordered to attend. He had appeared 
at that bar once before. It was when he read his answer to 
the charges which Burke had laid on the table. Since that ^^220 
time twenty-seven years had elapsed ; public feeling had un- 
dergone a complete change ; the nation had now forgotten his 
faults, and remembered only his services. The reappearance, 
too, of a man who had been among the most distinguislied of 
a generation that had passed away, who now belonged to his- 
tory, and who seemed to have risen from the dead, could not 
but produce a solemn and pathetic effect. The Commons re- 
ceived him with acclamations, ordered a chair to be set for 
him, and, when he retired, rose and uncovered. The Lords re- 
ceived the old man with similar tokens of respect. ^230 

These marks of public esteem were soon followed by marks 
of royal favor. Hastings was sworn of the privy council, and 
was admitted to a long private audience of the prince regent, 
who treated him very graciously. When the Emperor of Rus- 
sia and the King of Prussia visited England, Hastings appeared 
in their train both at Oxford and in the Guildhall of London, 
and, though surrounded by a crowd of princes and great war- 
riors, was everywhere received with marks of respect and ad- 
miration. Hastings now confidently expected a peerage ; but, 
from some unexplained cause, he was again disappointed. 1240 

He lived about four years longer, in the enjoyment of good 
spirits, of faculties not impaired to any painful or degrading 
extent, and of health such as is rarely enjoyed by those 
who attain such an age. At length, on the 22d of August, 
1818, in the 86th year of his age, he met death with the same 
tranquil and decorous fortitude which he had opposed to all 
the trials of his various and eventful life. 



1236. Guildhall.— An important public building in London. The original 
building was erected in 1411. It has been famous for centuries for the magnifi- 
cence of its civic feasts. 



54 WARKEl^- HASTINGS. 

With all his faults — and they were neither few nor small — 
only one cemetery was worthy to contain his remains. In that 

1250 temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities of 
twenty generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey which has 
during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose 
minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the 
Great Hall, the dust of the illustrious acciised should have 
mingled with the dust of the illustrious accusers. This was 
not to be. Yet the place of interment was not ill chosen. Be- 
hind the chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth 
which already held the bones of many chiefs of the house of 
Hastings, was laid the coffin of the greatest man who has ever 

1260 borne that ancient and widely extended name. On that very 
spot, probably, fourscore years before, the little Warren, 
meanly clad and scantily fed, had played with the children of 
plowmen. Even then his young mind had revolved plans 
which might be called romantic. Yet, however romantic, it 
is not likely that they had been so strange as the truth. Not 
only had the poor orphan retrieved the fallen fortunes of his 
line. Not only had he repurchased the old lands, and rebuilt 
the old dwelling. He had preserved and extended an empire. 
He had founded a polity. He had administered government 

1270 and war with more than the capacity of Richelieu. He had 
patronized learning with the judicious liberality of Cosmo. 
He had been attacked by the most formidable combination of 
enemies that ever sought the destruction of a single victim ; 
and over that combination, after a struggle of ten years, he 
had triumphed. He had at length gone down to his grave in 
the fullness of age in peace, after so many troubles ; in honor, 
after so much obloquy. 

Those who look on his character without favor or malevo- 
lence will pronounce that, in the two great elements of all so- 



1270. Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642).— The eminent and ambitious 
French statesman and prime minister. 

1271. Cosmo or Coslmo de Medici (1389-1464), surnamed the Elder, a 
famous statesman of the Florentine republic, and liberal patron of learning and 
the arts. 



WAKEEK HASTINGS. 55 

cial virtue, in respect for the rights of others, and in sympathy 1280 
for the sufferings of others, he was deficient. His principles 
were somewhat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. But 
though we cannot with truth describe him either as a righteous 
or as a merciful ruler, we cannot regard without admiration 
the amplitude and fertility of his intellect, his rare ta\ents for 
command, for administration, and for controversy, his daunt- 
less courage, his honorable poverty, his fervent zeal for the in- 
terests of the State, his noble equanimity, tried by both 
extremes of fortune, and never disturbed by either. 



Selections to Commit to Memory. 

He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity 
which the beggars in the streets mimicked.— ^ssay on Lord Byron. 



lity ^B 



This is the highest miracle of genius— that things which are not should be as 
though they were, that the imaginations of one mind should become the per- 
sonal recollections of another. And this miracle the tinker has WJ'oaght.— JE'ssa 
on the Pilgrim's Progress. 



To every man upon this earth 
Death cometh soon or late, 
And how can man die better 
Than facing fearful odds, 
For the ashes of his fathers 
And the temples of his gods ? 

•—Lays of Ancient Borne, 



The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, ir. 
its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in thefacility with which its scheme 
accommodates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, in the consolation 
which it bears to the house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the 
great mystery of the gv&yc.— Essay on Southey''s Colloquies on Society. 



Surely it is no exaggeration to say, that no external advantage is to be com- 
pared with that purification of the intellectual eye, which gives us to contemplate 
the infinite wealth of the mental world ; all the hoarded treasures of the prime- 
val dynasties, all the shapeless ore of its yet unexplored mines. This is the gift 
of Athens to man. Her freedom and her power have for more than twenty cen- 
turies been annihilated ; bfjr people have degenerated into feeble slaves ; her 
language into a barbarous jargon ; her temples have been given up to the suc- 
cessive depredations of Komuns, Turks, and Scotchmen ; but her intellectual 
empire is imperishable. And when those who have rivaled her greatness shall 
have shared her fate ; when civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their 
abode in distant continents ; when the sceptre shall have passed away from 
England ; when, perhaps, travelers from distant regions shall in vain labor to 
decipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief; shall 
hear savage hymns chanted to some misshapen idol over the ruined dome of our 
proudest temple ; and shall see a single naked fisherman wash his nets in the 
river of ten thousand masts,— her influence and her glory will still survive, fresh 
in eternal youth, exempt from mutability and decay, immortal as the intellectual 
principle from which they derived their origin, and over which they exercise 
their i^ouiroX- Essay on the Athenian Orators. 

56 



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Mailing price, 30 cents. 
Special Prices to Teachers. 



Full Descriptive Catalogue sent on appucation. 



